Today is Thursday, or should I say: “How-bad-did-WWE-do-in-the-ratings-this-week-day”.
In all seriousness, the ratings for Raw and SmackDown have took a huge dip since WrestleMania time, with both shows earning themselves the worst ratings so far this year multiple times in the last few weeks.
Could either show turn the tide this week? It’s time to find out.
Two weeks ago (21 May), Raw scored its lowest viewership total since June 2017, with only 2.689 million viewers.
Last week (28 May), that figure dropped to 2.495 million, meaning last week’s Raw was the second least viewed episode in its history.
Before this week’s edition, multiple matches were announced, including Nia Jax vs. Natalya, Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Roode, a WWE Raw Tag Team Championship number one contender’s Battle Royal, and Finn Bálor vs. Kevin Owens.
This week, the red brand managed to increase in viewership for the first time in three weeks, scoring a total of 2.525 million viewers.
As I mentioned last week, an increase was expected, given that last week’s edition took place on Independence Day and also had the NBA and NFL to contend with.
Despite the increase, I wouldn’t consider this week’s ratings as “good”, but of course, hopefully the improvement is a sign of things to come.
Source: ShowBuzz Daily
For the last two weeks (May 22 and 29), SmackDown has brought in 2.195 million viewers, the worst of 2018, and also the worst since Halloween last year.
Before this week’s SmackDown, it was confirmed that Charlotte Flair would take on Becky Lynch, Carmella would “reveal the truth” about Asuka, Jimmy Uso would team with his wife Naomi to take on Aiden English and Lana in a mixed tag team match, and AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura would partake in a contract signing for their Last Man Standing clash at Money in the Bank for Styles’ WWE Championship.
This didn’t help ‘Team Blue’, as once again viewership decreased to score a new 2018 low, as only 2.138 million people tuned in.
The magic number to remember is 2.119 million, as that is the number of people who watched last year’s October 31 edition, and if things carry on like they are now, we’ll be beneath that total at some point in the near future.
But, as I said last week: ONE BILLION DOLLARS.
Source: ShowBuzz Daily
All I want to do is be positive, but it’s so difficult when WWE is so blatantly under-performing when it comes to attracting viewers.
I genuinely do hope things pick up soon because writing these on a weekly basis has been a bit depressing, recently.
With next week’s shows being the final before Money in the Bank, which takes place on June 17, I would expect more people to tune in.
What did Love Island have to do with this week’s SmackDown Live? Find out that and my full thoughts on which of WWE‘s two flagship shows performed better this week, in the seventh edition of ‘Raw vs. SmackDown‘.
What do you make of this week’s ratings? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter here.
6 years ago by Liam Winnard
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