Raw ratings show an interesting pattern in first week post-football

Raw’s numbers unexpectedly rose against an NFL Playoff game on Jan. 17. So for the first episode to air without any football competition since August, it’s no shock the rating went up again.

The pattern was a little surprising, though.

Overall, the Jan. 24 edition averaged 1.786 million viewers and a .46 rating among 18-49 year olds across its three hours. It beat all other cable originals in the latter metric by a healthy margin (Bravo’s Below Deck was second with a .40, while TLC’s 1000-Lb. Sisters drew a .33 to finish third).

Compared to the Monday before, that’s an almost 10% improvement in the audience number, and a 7% bump over the previous demo rating.

Now, about that hourly breakdown:

Hour One: 1.822 million / .47
Hour Two: 1.822 million / .45
Hour Three: 1.594 million / .47

Viewers aged 18-49 either came back or tuned in for... Maryse’s birthday party main event? Even odder, those were mostly men. The rating among women in the demo fell from .39 to .36 from 9pm - 10pm ET, while the one for guys in the same range increased from .54 to .58.

Mrs. Miz does look fantastic these days, but there’s got to be more to it than that. We’re open to theories. Give us those below, and we’ll see how Royal Rumble fallout affects Raw’s numbers next week.

For complete results and this week’s Raw live blog click here. To read a recap & review of the night’s events click here. For video highlights of the show click here.

Numbers via Showbuzz Daily