Many are fearing what will happen to WWE’s weekly RAW rating when the show permanently extends to three hours, but for the past two weeks, the series has been on a nice little stretch.
After scoring an impressive rating for last week’s three-hour show, this Monday’s two-hour episode also delivered well. The show averaged a 1.9 adults 18-49 rating with more than 4.96 million viewers, essentially matching last week’s performance from 9-11PM.
Like last week, the show attracted more than 5 million viewers for its second hour, a feat that has become increasingly rare for the veteran weekly wrestling series.
Of relevance, however, is the fact that both this week’s and last week’s episodes were built around John Laurinaitis’ storyline status with WWE. Last week, Vince McMahon returned to give “Big Johnny” a performance review. This week, the show built towards Laurinaitis’ “farewell” speech and match.
Assuming WWE will at least keep the character off television for several weeks (he is still booked to appear on upcoming house shows, but the storyline on Monday’s RAW did feel like a write-off from a television standpoint), it should be interesting to see if WWE can maintain its recent ratings success as it builds towards its three-hour expansion.
