Recent WWE Raw Match ‘Least Watched Ever’, More Details On Record Low Ratings

WWE

The Monday, September 18, 2023 episode of WWE Raw had the ‘least watched’ match in the recorded history of the show.

The show was up against two NFL games and the overall viewership slipped down from the week prior, which had also set the record low (excluding a “best of” show) before the record was set once again this week.

Dave Meltzer provided insight into the numbers and partial cause during today’s Wrestling Observer Radio.

Giving his analysis into the performance of this week’s episode of WWE Raw, Meltzer said:

“The Raw number was the lowest viewer total in the history of the show, except for one of the ‘best of’ shows a couple of years ago. 1,331,000 viewers. But up to 0.44 in 18-49.

“This was against two football games, so the two football games combined did roughly the same, it was almost exact of what last week did with the one game on both ABC and ESPN, it was a bigger game last week, but this time it was two games, it was in the range of 22 million viewers. So 22,304,000 viewers. So very formidable competition and explains the ratings drop.

“But Raw was up with younger viewers from the week before – 0.44 is, considering that competition, 0.44 is not bad. But, the flip side is that it was up higher with the younger viewers than last week, but it was down (overall), which means another drop in over 50, which is where your viewer total is generally determined by how many over 50 viewers because that’s the vast majority of the Raw audience, although it’s becoming less of the vast majority of the Raw audience since August, since SummerSlam.

“So that’s continuing to drop, a lot of which is related to football, but there is football every single year, and the drop in over 50 viewers started before football, but it’s really accelerated in the last two weeks. Not as a surprise. So that was the situation there.

“Raw had been ahead of last year’s numbers consistently, but the past couple of weeks, that has not been the case.

“Raw was the lowest… it was not the lowest first hour in history, but it was the lowest second hour, and the lowest third hour.

“And the Ciampa match with Giovanni Vinci was the least-watched Raw match in history, with 1,192,000 viewers. So that was the basic situation there.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

The first staff meeting since the merger into TKO was conducted this week, with Ari Emanuel, Vince McMahon and Nick Khan heading it.

McMahon referred to Emanuel as his boss and stated that WWE had stagnated and that’s why the deal was necessary (despite the fact WWE had been setting all kinds of records before the merger).

McMahon used a walking cane following his recent back surgery, and was the only exec who didn’t hang back to talk to staff after the meeting.

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• viewership
• RAW
• Ratings
• wwe

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