Raw’s TV numbers are still getting a ThunderDome boost, but not as big of one

WWE had seen its television audiences grow from the previous episode of the same show for each of their first three shows in ThunderDome. That streak came to an end with the Aug. 31 Raw.

It’s a bit unexpected, as this was also a PPV fallout show, and there was no competition from a political convention for the first time in three weeks. There were NBA playoffs, however, and the pair of games on TNT that aired opposite Raw topped the overnight cable ratings.

Viewers for the three hours of Raw were down 132K (or 6.5%) from Aug. 24’s 2.03 million. According to Showbuzz Daily, last night’s average was 1.9 million, broken down as follows:

Hour one: 2.1 million
Hour two: 1.88 million
Hour three: 1.7 million

The drop is the story there, as the first hour number is similar to last week’s. But a lack of interest in Drew McIntyre’s next challenger, or the lure of intriguing basketball games, led to a much bigger drop than the SummerSlam fallout show experienced.

Ratings painted a mixed picture. The 18 - 49 year old dropped along with the viewership, down to .58 from last Monday’s .67. The 18 - 34 number was unchanged at .33, though. So at least the 20 somethings stuck around.

Overall, all these numbers are well below where they were before the pandemic, but nicely above where they were during the episodes from the Performance Center.

Get complete results and the live blog from Raw this week here, a recap of all the night’s events here, and highlights from the show here.