WWE Raw viewers up for start of the Paul Heyman era

There was a lot of curiosity surrounding this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw, considering it was the first show since WWE announced Paul Heyman was hired as Executive Director. Sure enough, viewership went up.

Indeed, this week’s show drew 2.49 million viewers, up from last week’s 2.27 million.

The hourly breakdown:

Hour one: 2.47 million
Hour two: 2.68 million
Hour three: 2.35 million

The Wrestling Observer helps explain why this was such a success:

The first-to-second hour growth was strong across the board. The added viewers in hour two, usually a decline, were 10 percent in women 18-49, seven percent in men 18-49, 13 percent in teenage girls, and 15 percent in teenage boys. So this style was strongest with teenagers, the age group WWE television has had huge losses with over the past year.

Now we see if SmackDown sees similar growth with curiosity over Eric Bischoff taking over.

Get complete Raw results and the live blog here, a recap of the show here, and highlights right here.