It’s a new era in WWE, and there is an ongoing competition between the Raw and SmackDown Live brands. This column is focused on how much televised wrestling content is seen on each brand when commercial time is removed from the equation.
Televised match times
Here is the amount of television time given to each match on the February 27, 2017 edition of Raw:
- 6m 13s: New Day vs. Rusev & Mahal (1 commercial break)
- 3m 00s: Akira Tozawa vs. Noam Dar
- 9m 22s: Bayley & Sasha vs. Nia Jax & Charlotte (1 break)
- 2m 41s: Big Cass vs. Luke Gallows
- 0m 19s: Sheamus vs. Titus O’Neil
- 1m 52s: Big Show vs. Shining Stars
- 1m 56s: Gallagher & Perkins vs. Neville & Nese
- 4m 37s: Cesaro vs. Samoa Joe (1 break)
Here is the amount of television time given to each match on the February 28, 2017 edition of SmackDown Live:
- 3m 40s: Fall #1 - Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James (1 break)
- 1m 31s: Fall #2 - Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James (began during break)
- 1m 14s: Fall #3 - Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James
- 7m 28s: Luke Harper vs. AJ Styles [part 1] (1 break)
- 1m 08s: Luke Harper vs. AJ Styles [part 2]
- 5m 23s: Apollo Crews vs. Dolph Ziggler (1 break)
Results for Week 32
Raw total televised content: 2h 16m 41s
Raw televised wrestling time: 30m 00s (8 matches)
Raw wrestling time percentage: 21.9%
SmackDown Live total televised content: 1h 23m 02s
SmackDown Live televised wrestling time: 20m 24s (3 matches)
SmackDown Live wrestling time percentage: 24.6%
Raw and SmackDown combined for just 50m 24s of televised wrestling time this week (22.9%), and this is their lowest weekly sum (and percentage) of the brand split era. The prior record low occurred way back in Week 2 in early August 2016, when the two shows combined for 51m 23s of televised match time (23.8%).
The average sum of their televised match times over the prior 31 weeks was 68m 58s, so this low mark of 50m 24s in Week 32 is a huge drop off from the typical week of television. Only 4 out of the 32 individual weeks have included less than 60m 00s of televised match time.
5 of the 8 matches on Raw were no longer than 3m 00s, and the sum of the three falls in Becky’s match on SmackDown combined for a televised match time of 6m 25s.
Overall results for the brand split
Here are the overall results for the brand split thus far, which began on July 25, 2016:
Raw total televised content: 71h 45m 14s
Raw televised wrestling time: 22h 14m 09s (245 matches)
Raw wrestling time percentage: 31.0%
SmackDown Live total televised content: 44h 01m 27s
SmackDown Live televised wrestling time: 14h 14m 21s (142 matches)
SmackDown Live wrestling time percentage: 32.3%
Combined total televised content: 115h 46m 41s
Combined televised wrestling time: 36h 28m 30s (387 matches)
Combined wrestling time percentage: 31.5%