Last week, some comments from WWE CEO Nick Khan restarted discussions about Raw’s struggle to hold viewers into its third hour every week, and the April 17 episode demonstrated that issue with a big drop off for the 10pm ET block.
This week, with the added challenge of going head-to-head with LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Playoffs during that third hour, Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer theorized that WWE held Bad Bunny’s appearance until the end of the April 24 episode to keep more of the audience.
Did it work?
Before we get to that, we’ll give you the hourly averages for this week’s Raw: 1,815,000 viewers and a .56 rating among 18-49 year olds. The audience number is identical to the prior Monday. The demo number is down a little more than 3%. The show finished fourth overall on cable, behind two basketball games and an NBA studio show on TNT but ahead of all three NHL Playoff games that aired on ESPN & TBS. The only thing that beat Raw on broadcast was American Idol, which scored a .61 in the demo for ABC.
Now, about those hours. The 10pm block saw the usual declines. But even though that hour went head-to-head with the Lakers win over Memphis (which was the top rated show in 18-49 on all of television with a 1.64), it had 6% more viewers and a 4% higher demo rating than last week’s final hour…
Hour One: 1.84 million / .55
Hour Two: 1.94 million / .59
Hour Three: 1.67 million / .54
What’s more, 10pm held most of the overall 18-34 year old audience (where the hours were .37, .42, and 41), and was the highest rated among males in that age range (.34, .39, .41).
Combine that with year-over-year increases when compared to April 2022 episodes that faced the same level of competition, and WWE & their partners at NBCUniversal have to be pretty pleased.
For complete results and this week’s Raw live blog click here. To read a recap & review of the night’s events click here. For video highlights of the show click here.
Numbers via Showbuzz Daily
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