After delivering big numbers for the “go home” edition of RAW last week, the first post-Mania edition of the weekly WWE telecast fell back towards Earth.
Although the cable coverage rating looks steady with a 3.8, other key audience metrics reveal a decline from last week’s show. Some will note that RAW faced extensive additional competition from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, but in light of what ideally would have been massive buzz stemming from the WrestleMania 27 fallout, there were still expectations that RAW would improve on last week’s number.
Final ratings data reveals that RAW dropped to a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating (rounded up), down from last week’s unrounded 2.3. Total viewership was also down; the 136-minute edition of RAW averaged 5.62 million viewers. Last week’s show garnered viewership of 5.89 million.
A big factor was the second hour (plus overrun) of the respective shows; last week’s episode posted a 2.5 demo rating with 6.23 million viewers, while this week’s episode was only good for a 2.3 with 5.781 million viewers.
That strongly suggests that the interaction between The Rock and John Cena at WrestleMania did not entirely live up to the hype. While last week’s segment, billed as the first face-to-face encounter between Rock and Cena, spiked that episode’s second hour to RAW’s best numbers in years, the duo’s WrestleMania follow-up segment seemingly made less of an impact.
Of course, what ultimately matters at this point is how WWE will fare going forward. If WWE can hold in the mid-to-high 3s without heavy WrestleMania buzz and involvement from The Rock, the work WWE put into hyping its big WM27 pay-per-view will have proven truly beneficial.
If, however, WWE will be headed right back to the low-3s, questions will be raised about whether WWE could have better managed the recent surge in audience attention.