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Last night’s Raw did 3.38 million viewers, down 25 percent from last week’s 25th anniversary special.
There was no way the show would have come close to last week’s numbers, but a better comparison would be last year’s episode the day after the Royal Rumble, which did 3.61 million viewers, or a six percent year-to-year decline. In television today, that’s considered neither bad nor good.
What is notable is that the first hour of Raw after the Rumble, at 3.66 million viewers, beat last year’s first hour of 3.63 million. The difference is that last year the audience stayed through the show, with only a 1.5 percent decline in audience from hour one to hour three. This year’s decline was 16.4 percent from the first hour to the third hour.
Also notable is that the male audience was much higher by percentage than for a normal week of Raw, with a 65/35 split, which is more in line with several years ago. That’s notable because it indicates that if there were curiosity viewers regarding Ronda Rousey, they were far heavier male. Last year’s day after Rumble show did a 60/40 male/female split.
Raw was fourth for the night on cable as the news stations also did well above usual numbers.
Aside from last week, it was the best number for Raw since August 21st, the day after SummerSlam. The day after the Rumble is expected to be the second biggest rating of the year behind the post-WrestleMania episode. Only four shows in 2017 beat last night’s number, the day after the big three PPVs and the show eight days after WrestleMania.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 3.66 million viewers
9 p.m. 3.46 million viewers
10 p.m. 3.06 million viewers
Here’s a chart from Paul Fontaine that looks at the last five weeks of Raw ratings: