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Do Wrestlers Draw, Or Does the WWE Brand Draw?

  • Wrestlers Draw

    Votes: 251 39.5%
  • WWE Brand draws

    Votes: 384 60.5%
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**The Official Raw Ratings Thread** (Discuss Ratings In Here)

988K views 9K replies 852 participants last post by  Starbuck 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
For a list of the weekly rating dating back to January, please click here:

http://www.gerweck.net/tv-ratings/2012-tv-ratings/

RATINGS BREAKDOWN FOR THIS WEEKS RAW 4/9

Raw on 4/9 did a 3.10 rating and 4.29 million viewers. The show was third for the night on cable. The show did a 2.4 in Males 12-17, 2.7 in Males 18-49, 1.0 in Girls 12-17 and 1.1 in Women 18-49 with a 69.3% male skew. It was down 21% from the 5.46 million viewers of the week after Mania show last year, and last year there was no bombshell along the lines of the Brock Lesnar return on the night after Mania show.

In the segment-by-segment, Brodus Clay & Santino Marella vs. Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger lost 99,000 viewers.

Backstage with Laurinaitis with Miz an Cena, Marella looking for the Three Stooges and R-Truth vs. Cody Rhodes gained 255,000 viewers.

Lord Tensai vs. Yoshi Tatsu lost 415,000 viewers.

The mic work between C.M. Punk and Chris Jericho in the top of the hour segment gained 379,000 viewers to a 3.19.

Punk vs. Henry and the post-match with Jericho pouring beer all over Punk, as well as the quick Del Rio vs. Ryder match lost 169,000 viewers.

The Three Stooges in-ring segment lost 240,000 viewers and was the low point of the show at 2.90.

The Brock Lesnar interview gained 423,000 viewers.

And the Cena vs. Otunga match with Lesnar run-in gained 301,000 viewers, which is a very weak overrun number, finishing at 3.42.
 
#5,959 ·
Then don't ever be serious. ;)
 
#6,037 ·
His Making Miztory segment drew something like 1 million viewers featuring just him by himself with no help from a top name. That's something neither Punk, Orton, Bryan or whoever the hell else stupid mark wars erupt over has done.
Orton did plenty of big segments alone and in his Legacy days. Miz was bigger than Punk and Bryan but he's not even close to Orton or to what Orton did in the past. Orton was "the top name" who was helping others.

Anyway, horrible viewership, even too high for such a lifeless and boring program. I can see it going down week after week.
 
#6,076 ·
Long story short, 3 hours is just too damn long to sit and watch any program continuously no matter what it is. Movies aren't even this long. People just don't have the attention span for it no less in this day and age when most folks can't go 3 minutes without being on their phone, ipad or laptop never mind 3 hours. It's just too long and unless they have an Emmy award winning writing team, they simply won't be able to sustain interest for that period of time and even if they did, I still don't think they'd be able to do it because it's simply just too long.
 
#6,078 ·
It's almost like the Bryan/Kane segments are a microcosm of WWE's TV woes at the moment: they don't know how to deliver consistently good TV, so just deliver more and more product of hugely variable quality, constantly constantly constantly, until people can't take it anymore. They bump Raw up to 3 hours, then there's 2 hours of Smackdown, 1 hour of Superstars, 1 hour of NXT, then Saturday Morning Slam or whatever, and now this WWE Main Event show that's coming out. Holy shit, guys - I barely watch that many hours of TV a week in general, never mind WWE-specific.
 
#6,125 ·
Daniel Bryan going from main event heel to midcard comedy joke coincides with massive drop.
 
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#6,168 ·
Caldwell's Analysis: Raw faced a "perfect storm" going up against the Green Bay Packers in football and fall TV season premieres on broadcast TV, but the shows are clearly too long to sustain the audience without burning out viewers. Also, the lack of a hook from last week to this week as WWE just tries to get through a three-hour show every week is coming up in the numbers with an inability to retain viewers.
Yep.
 
#6,186 ·
^^^^Why you wan't non-wrestlers having matches for? Dafuq is Ballotelli and Jose gonna do in the ring lol?

At this rate the only thing that can/will save him is a program with Rock and/or a proper Mania main event program with Brock/HHH/Taker. I don't know what else they can do to get the message across tbh. They've paired him with Cena, Bret Hart, now Mick Foley. What more can they do? What other legends are left you know? Austin? It's got to be the residual effect of completely ignoring him for 9 months of his 10 month title reign. They can't just undo what they've done during that time. As THE main storyline and focus of the show this past month, something isn't clicking.
 
#6,188 ·
At this rate the only thing that can/will save him is a program with Rock and/or a proper Mania main event program with Brock/HHH/Taker. I don't know what else they can do to get the message across tbh. They've paired him with Cena, Bret Hart, now Mick Foley. What more can they do? What other legends are left you know? Austin? It's got to be the residual effect of completely ignoring him for 9 months of his 10 month title reign. They can't just undo what they've done during that time. As THE main storyline and focus of the show this past month, something isn't clicking.
Honestly, the thing I have always come back to is the complete botch they made of bringing Punk back, FAR too early. The "leaving" with the WWE title should have spanned much longer. Many people, including myself thought he would be gone for 2-3 months or such. Punk even said he was promised time off. They could have built a longer storyline, with run ins from Punk causing big issues, such as costing Vince's "champion"(Cena, Vince says he is the only one that can solve the mess he made or a big-time heel, who Vince trusts over Cena)matches(in favour of incredibly over babyface). Simple stuff like that, until later on Vince gets fired and then Punk returns at the end of a PPV where we see Cena win. However, WWE always like to pull the trigger early when they are sure of something. And again, this was the case. They decided to capitalize on the rematch and his overness as fast as they could.

As for the whole "LOL HHH BERRIED PUNK AT NOC" argument. As I have said before, that was another big mistake in the storyline. Not necessarily having Punk lose at NOC, but the entire balls they made of the afterwards. Punk apologises, and turns into John Cena lite. We saw during July-August how effective and over Punk was as the "edgy" babyface. Simply being Punk. As for the quick post-NOC babyface turn the casual audience were not getting fully behind this "edgy" Punk. Being a sarcastic and witty dick to the babyfaces did not mull over well with the casual audience, despite how much better of a character it was for him. I think the best measure here was to turn HHH heel and have him take the title from Del Rio and have the storyline be "HHH was the liar all along".

I think the entire reign he has had, and his entire treatment(of being 2nd place to Cena) since post-WrestleMania moreso, has left the audience with the idea of "meh". They dont lose anything if they dont care for him, as the pinnacle and most important part of the show was Cena. However by that time, Punk was not making as much money at all compared to Cena, his summer "spark" had been whittled out. They sadly had no choice but to place Cena above Punk leading out of Mania.

Is it too late for Punk? Who knows. He could find and rebuff his entire flare again. But what will it take? The only possible answers, that are possible in the near-future, I can see now are:
-Beating John Cena cleanly
-Feuding with The Rock
-Teaming with Brock Lesnar
We will just have to see how WWE executes this going further. But it is looking rather dim.
 
#6,227 ·
Just like what I said, all punk segments gained and the rest lost a lot of viewers. Nothing else to see here and obviously it's not Punks fault.
 
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#6,247 ·
Starbuck, I agree with what you're saying about Punk and all of that above, but at the same time I think this whole storyline is in large part failing to draw what it ought to because of the taxing three-hour format. It's just too much. I think if we took a time machine to, say, 2006 and had Raw beginning in late July '06 start going three hours every week, we'd see even DX at the top impacted negatively by the format. It's the only cogent explanation for why Cena's drawing ability with viewers appears to be at an all-time low, in conjunction with no angle or personality who's regularly featured (Triple H deserves an immense level of credit for that showing from the Raw the night after Summerslam in the 10:00pm slot but he's a special attraction legend, no longer a star ala Cena or Punk or Sheamus or Miz or whoever who has to be in the trenches every week).

The third hour has become poison in terms of building a solid rating and viewership number throughout the program (lol, "program"... with the overrun the typical Raw clocks in at about ten minutes shorter than fucking Schindler's List, and with about 10,000x the padding, filler and overall puerile crappiness that Schindler's List is free of) unless they have something truly magnificent lined up like for Raw 1,000 or something that at least approaches that magnitude in terms of name and star value. It's just too damned long. It's not like the late '90s when Nitro went to three hours because now every other wrestling fan seems to giddily check it all out on YouTube the next morning or next day or next week or whenever instead, or they're recording it or whatever. I'm not trying to give them any excuses, that's not in my interest, but it figures that bloating the program to three hours is only going to hasten this already-existing phenomenon. Simply put, Raw at three hours loses the last shreds of "must-see TV" it still boasted as the premiere professional wrestling program on cable television.

Every year in late September there seems to be a nadir they reach, and sometimes it extends into the first week of October or so, so I don't know how much this is a simple rehashing of that phenomenon (a mixture or perfect storm if you will with MNF back, new fall shows back, kids going back to school and a billion other slight, minor factors to perhaps be considered or not considered). That Cena with his busted arm can't attract more fans to the product at that point in time than that speaks volumes of how much this whole current format is ostensibly preventing them from hitting any high notes in the final hour or even overrun, week after week now. Fans have caught on to the early hour at eight, but the third hour has paid a heavy price for that, it would seem.
 
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#6,303 ·
If Cena goes down with something that keeps him out more than a few months, WWE is fucked. The only guy who could maybe even slightly possibly replace Cena based on the fact his matches most of the time lead to increases is... well... Ryback. And that's a big IF, because while people might be content watching him in short burst matches, would he be accepted in main events or would be tune out? And even then, once Ryback loses his undefeated streak, does his appeal and drawing ability instantly go away? WWE seem to be grooming Sheamus, but he's not doing any better on SD for the overall number than Punk is doing for the overall number on Raw.

As far as Punk/Orton goes, they're in the exact same boat for me. They both did feud with HHH, and both involved the McMahon family (to some extent). The difference though was the execution and it's why Orton/HHH did as well as it did and why Orton in 2009 was a proven draw to some extent. Orton/HHH was heated, intense, and very personal with Orton taking out the McMahons one by one leading to him ultimately going against HHH at Mania. Punk/HHH was Punk complaining that HHH was a bad COO and it remained that for the entirety of the feud. It also goes to show that storylines and feuds can draw just as much as the wrestlers in the feud.

However the thing with Orton, was once he didn't have that safety net of HHH and an awesome feud to go along with it, namely I'm talking about in 2010 Raw, he didn't do any better than Punk is doing now as far as overall numbers go (I don't know what the breakdowns were back then, so if anyone wants to fill in, be my guest). Same thing with him on SD in 2011, because once they put the title on Mark Henry, suddenly ratings shot back up to WM ratings time.

But as I said, I don't know what the breakdown numbers of that time on Raw was, and SD doesn't have breakdowns so we can't really do much with that. I just think if you're going to call Orton a draw currently (not in 2009, CURRENTLY), then don't say Punk is not a draw, and vice-versa.
 
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#6,326 · (Edited)
IMO, its unfair to compare Orton's 2009 push with that of punk. Orton's push was extremely well planned and booked, starting with Rumble 2009 with HHH being a part of the final four and Orton eliminating him as a heel. And then the feb ppv No way out, his match against Shane Mcmahon, HHH becoming the WWE champion on the same night .. it was all well planned ahead and executed perfectly. It was also the first time they acknowledged HHH's real life relationship with Vince and Stephanie on-screen. All that played a key role in the success of the whole program. The feud itself was extremely intense and personal. Punk's push was largely rushed with no proper planning and pay-off. It was like they didnt know how to proceed with the angle, the week to week booking clearly didnt help. I remember a report at the time that said there was 6 different scripts at one point. The biggest mistake they ever did with the program was bringing him back too early to pop a good buyrate for Summerslam. Also, it should be noted that Orton's peak was wrestlemania season, the program itself peaked with Mcmahons/HHH vs Legacy/Orton brawl on the go home show which did a 4.1 overrun. Punk's push happened suddenly outta no where, in the middle of the summer starting with the shoot, got rushed and fizzled out before you could even figure out the whole storyline.
 
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