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In case you missed it last night, Raw did just a 2.8 cable rating this week. It came the day after a PPV, where it was announced a new champion would be crowned no less, which makes the number even worse. The show did face stiff competition from the MLB baseball playoffs and Monday Night Football's highest rating of the year, but they have faced those same challenges in the past and never sunk this low. In fact, a few years ago, both of those events were on broadcast TV, which has more potential viewers compared to being on cable now, so they have faced much bigger challenges from them in the past and never did this poorly. This is a truly scary number for WWE.
I talked to a few people in the company and they were shocked at how bad the Raw rating was this week. Vince McMahon found out about it at TV yesterday but didn't sell the low number to anyone that I talked to. He walked around like nothing was any different but everyone knows that by legitimately going under a 3, things definitely are.
Thanks to the Bucktron 3000, we know that the last time Raw's rating was 2.8 or less on a non-holiday Monday came on December 15, 1997 for a taped show where Steve Austin threw The Rock's Intercontinental Title into a river, so we are in 10 year lows right now. You would think that the message that the viewers are sending is clear. The question is, will Vince McMahon hear it.
The 10/6 edition of AM Raw did a 0.9 cable rating.
The 10/5 edition of Smackdown did a 2.5 broadcast rating. Given that Raw only did a 2.8 cable rating, given the smaller audience that cable has, more people actually watched Smackdown last Friday than Raw on Monday.
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