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There’s something for everyone in the first batch of numbers for the July 5 episode of Raw!
Despite the lack of competition from the NBA, this past Monday’s show only averaged 1.472 million viewers across its three hours. It’s possible an episode in the show’s first year of existence was watched by fewer people, but the reporting from 1993 was by household not viewers, so we don’t know for sure. Wrestlenomics Brandon Thurston explains:
It's been pointed out to me the Oct 1993 issue of Matwatch reported the Sept 13, 1993 episode of Raw was watched by 1.021 million households. If that episode had fewer than 1.45 viewers per home, it could have had fewer total viewers than Mon's episode. (Repost to correct date) pic.twitter.com/0RvHEFUzWf
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) July 7, 2021
There was still competition from the NHL. Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals drew 2.56 million sets of eyes, which is good for hockey. For comparison, though, last night’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals had an audience of 6.4 million, - so WWE still dodged a bullet (at least with Raw; we’ll see how NXT fared against the Suns & the Bucks).
It was also the end of a long holiday weekend here in the United States. Most folks I know did their Independence Day celebrating on Sunday, but travel, etc. definitely made it an off-night for TV.
And, here’s the something for everyone part... the 18 - 49 year old demographic rating held steady from last week. That .41 is still among the lowest in history, but PW Torch says it was good enough to be #1 on cable.
Historic lows, some excuses but not a big one they could have used, and outperforming the competition in the key metric? That’s a lot to chew on.
For Raw results and the live blog from this week’s show click here. For a review of the night’s show click here. For highlights from the show click here.