While the rating for Monday’s WWE RAW was far from impressive, a report that first appeared on PWTorch.com provided a misleading perspective about how bad it actually was.
The published 2.37 figure actually refers to the show’s aggregate household rating, which measures the show’s performance among all households with televisions. Although many media outlets do look at this figure since it, at the end of the day, tells you exactly what percentage of homes with television was watching RAW (and thus situates RAW within the context of shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Event”), it cannot be compared to the “rating” that wrestling websites typically post.
That rating, the cable household rating, measures the show’s performance among only those households with access to cable. Insofar as no one without cable could have watched RAW, there is a school of thought that the show should not be held accountable for those viewers and that the cable rating is more valid.
On that metric, the show looks to have done a 2.7. Again, that figure is not good, but it is similarly not as devastating as a 2.37.
Within television circles, it should be noted that it is the demographic ratings–not the overall household rating–that mean the most to advertisers, as they typically aim to focus their products at young adults. RAW did a 1.4 in that adults 18-49 demographic this week, which was in line with last week’s performance. Total viewership was down slightly.
