A familiar story for Raw ratings

If you follow pro wrestling’s television numbers, you know that the coverage of live sports — and particularly the NBA Playoffs — have been negatively impacting them across the board. So you can probably guess what happened to Raw on May 2 when it went up against two basketball games and the start of hockey’s postseason.

The episode averaged 1.58 million viewers across its three hours, slightly lower than on April 24 and one of the lowest numbers in the show’s history. The .38 rating among 18-49 year olds was significantly down from the Monday before (more than 13.5%), and also among the lowest ever.

Here’s the hourly break down for total viewers and 18-49:

Hour One: 1.62 million / .39
Hour Two: 1.65 million / .39
Hour Three: 1.47 million / .35

Still, just like last week, WWE still gave USA the highest rated non-NBA show on cable. TNT’s broadcasts of the two basketball games won the night, averaging audiences of 3.88 million with 1.33 demo numbers. Raw outpaced the highest rated NHL contest; Boston vs. Carolina drew 857K viewers and a .29 rating for ESPN.

Maybe WrestleMania Backlash fallout will give the show a boost next week? It’ll need something, as its facing the same competition.

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