Last night’s edition of Monday Night Raw made history, and not in a good way, though it was expected opposite the first presidential debate. According to tweets from James Caldwell of PWTorch, it was the lowest rated episode of the show in its almost 24 year history…well, maybe not, read on:
1.8 is the lowest Raw TV rating in the history of the show. We're waiting for the official rating to see if below.
— James Caldwell (@jctorch) September 27, 2016
12 minutes later…
Raw – 1.75
— James Caldwell (@jctorch) September 27, 2016
EDIT: Actually, it’s the second lowest rated ever:
Yep, you're right. Found it. 1.5 is the all-time low. Probably Christmas Week '96 was the factor. pic.twitter.com/vgmHgQNatH
— James Caldwell (@jctorch) September 27, 2016
Last week’s show did a 1.97, with the previous week’s edition pulling in a 1.88. Â PWTorch’s Wade Keller pointed out that with regards to the effect of the debate, relative to the competition, this was a win that shows the loyalty of WWE’s core audience:
Raw comes in at 1.75 rating, down from 1.97, a mere 9 percent drop in rating compared to a 30 percent drop for MNF up against debate.
— Wade Keller (@thewadekeller) September 27, 2016
The cable rating used historically by the wrestling media for Raw represents the number of households subscribing to USA Network that are watching the show. That’s not necessarily the figure used as much by those in the TV business anymore, as ratings representing the adults 18-49 demographic represent the targets for ads, but it’s what we’re all use to using.
Raw comes in at 1.75 rating, down from 1.97, a mere 9 percent drop in rating compared to a 30 percent drop for MNF up against debate.
— Wade Keller (@thewadekeller) September 27, 2016
According to earlier reports from Dave Meltzer at F4WOnline as well as the staff at TV By the Numbers and Show Buzz Daily, the total viewer number wasn’t good, either: Raw averaged 2.46 million viewers across the whole three hour show, down from 2.68 million last week. This is an all-time low for Raw.
Before getting the actual rating, Meltzer noted that last night’s rating could end up being the new valley “for any WWE wrestling television show ever on Monday night dating back to the Prime Time Wrestling era” that ended in 1992. That remains to be seen until we start digging through our records. Also, in the key 18-49 year old adult demographic, Raw peaked at a 1.0, down from last week’s 1.1
