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.
Well seeing how on the east coast its already 11:00pm and a good portion on WWE's new "REAL FANS" as WWE marks would like to say, Well most of them are in bed. But I would agree that Punk isn't a major draw but to blame "him" and not the WWE is a bit foolish.
Well I guess I was too pre-emptive on putting the blame on Punk. Lo and behold, he was probably the only bright spot on the active roster. The breakdown still looks awful even though the show was really entertaining. The fact that the draw for this episode was Lawler's interview, and that segment did nothing at all, is a very telling sign.
Obviously the segments with Foley and Heyman did good. Good thing they saved the anit-draw in CM Punk. Everything else is standard fair, Cena drawing as always and Rocks dust keeping this company alive.
Hum, WWE has had that tendency for the longest time, starting out decent and only dropping save for a few Heyman/Punk or Cena segments. Interesting that Team Hell No turns viewers away, I guess wrestling fans and casual have a different opinion on entertainment, or maybe they just don't care about the storyline for different reasons. But regardless of specific names, WWE needs to find a way to turn around the way their ratings develop throughout the show, having every quarter drop shows that the fans at home are only tuning out, but hardly tuning in, regardless who is on (except the mentioned names).
On a totally unrelated note, great work by the mod/admin adding Scott Steiner tags under our forum names, GOAT!
Maybe so many Shelby segs is overkill and they wanna see some action. And then after all that they come into the ring just to decide a name? Peeps ain't getting much from that. I find it entertaining, but I guess some are just thinking it's dragging out. I guess WWE is taking a slow calm approach with re development of the tag division, but maybe people just don't have much patience or care to watch those segments over and over.
So the takeaway is that when you put out an inconsistent product, even your main draws get inconsistent ratings. Nobody's a big enough deal that people will sit through 3 hours of mediocre television. Colour me surprised.
Doesn't help on top of this it's 3 hours... even when you have decent stuff in the final hour like Bryan/Kane people are so worn out they just start tuning out.
But, to be fair, they went up against the final bit of that close and controversial game of american football too.
Maybe Punk is starting to draw as a heel? Who knows, consistency is key and will see how his segments do next week. But it's funny that Punk nearly tripled Orton's 9 O'clock segment a couple weeks ago.
Nope, but Orton is a mega star that draws like a monster and Punk is a indie jabroni.
Not saying Punk is a draw, but give him credit where credit is due. Not saying Orton doesn't draw, I'm just using it as an example.
There's a difference between someone who draws and someone who drew.
How many on the current roster could be classified a bonafide attraction on name alone for fans of the product as well as those outside the WWE/professional wrestling bubble?
Don't see the surprise here of "See, Punk gained", obviously, he was in all the key segments of the show(And the overall audience was the lowest for a non-holiday RAW since 1997). The factor here is the gain and that overrun was a disaster number and one of the lowest RAW overruns since they started doing overruns after Bischoff started this "trick" with Nitro. The only real decent spot here is Mick Foley's return promo. Everything else was horrible, including the Ryback match but that was more because it was right after a big surprise with Foley at the 9pm segment.
People shouldn't be too concerned with the possibility of management tossing aside the Kane-Bryan team concept because of the numbers. It's obvious they're intent on pushing the tag-team aspect of the program. Whether or not they'll get the same coverage remains to be seen, however.
Saying that, it wouldn't be a bad thing they toned back the hug segments (love it if they ditched it altogether from this point) and became more proactive in creating weekly 'hooks' to keep things fresh. Personal taste aside (I don't find Team Friendship funny, although I don't look to WWE for comedic value), I reckon a lot of viewers quite like the Anger Management concept but can't stand the 'hug it out' schtick. Aside from its charm it's not exactly captivating, must-see television, and a lot of casuals hate seeing that sort of stuff in their program.
Then again, they seem to like love-triangle storylines. :hmm:
At least Team Hell No are funny and Vince apparently laughs at them lol. If they weren't giving them focus who else would they be giving it to? Cena's arm chips lol.
IMO the whole NFL ordeal has completely screwed up the Raw ratings to a point where it is hardly worth over analysing it this way. The breakdown seems to be all over the place to me. Even Cena being hyped up throughout the show did very little. It's clear that the NFL would have brought in a whole heap of people to see what would happen with their referees.
One thing I don't get is why you guys even have football on a Monday night anyway. That's just weird to me. With our main football league in Australia they play on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays each week. With only one week in the year where they play on a Monday afternoon. It's solely a weekend thing otherwise.
edit: I'm getting ignored by Scott Steiner, that's awesome.
Punk losing viewers gets brushed under the rug? What alternate universe do you live in, Starbuck?
I don't disagree with your post. This doesn't prove Punk is a "draw", but certainly it proves that he's not an anti-draw which so many spout ridiculously. Punk's incredibly inconsistent, but he can draw big, arguably bigger than anyone else on the roster when put with a big draw (besides another big draw). When he's not with a big draw though, it's split with whether he draws well or not.
Actually, that intrigues me a bit. A few weeks ago I got together all the breakdowns up to that point from this year and saved them. What I'm gonna do for the fuck of it, is gather all the Punk segments where he wasn't with a proven draw (which at this point in WWE I'm only considering Cena, HHH, Rock, Undertaker, Lesnar and maybe Foley... though he's a legend I'm not sure how big of a draw he actually is in this day and age. I'd need to check his segments in breakdowns to see that for myself). I'll have to wait until Friday or Saturday to do it since that's where my laptop is, so if anyone else wants to beat me to it, feel free. I'm interested myself in seeing if he really has never drawn well with a proven draw. The one I was thinking of at first was the Punk "shoot" on Laurinaitis in January a couple of weeks before the Rumble, but then I remembered Foley was there at the end of it and was there for a good enough time where he'd have brought in viewers if he was going to.
But hell, Laurinaitis could be considered a proven draw as well when he was an authority figure because of just that... he was an authority figure.
Then again, today in WWE what really draws exceptionally isn't an individual wrestler, but a great storyline.
^^^^ Yup. I said that sometime this week, that the way they've gone about presenting Punk to us for the past 9 months or so, the damage that was done during that time, well, we may be seeing now that the results are unfixable so to speak. They can't promote somebody as second or third best for 9 months and then expect people to believe he's the shit in month 10. It doesn't work like that and in a way, that bit really isn't his fault is it?
Punk losing viewers gets brushed under the rug? What alternate universe do you live in, Starbuck?
I don't disagree with your post. This doesn't prove Punk is a "draw", but certainly it proves that he's not an anti-draw which so many spout ridiculously. Punk's incredibly inconsistent, but he can draw big, arguably bigger than anyone else on the roster when put with a big draw (besides another big draw). When he's not with a big draw though, it's split with whether he draws well or not.
Actually, that intrigues me a bit. A few weeks ago I got together all the breakdowns up to that point from this year and saved them. What I'm gonna do for the fuck of it, is gather all the Punk segments where he wasn't with a proven draw (which at this point in WWE I'm only considering Cena, HHH, Rock, Undertaker, Lesnar and maybe Foley... though he's a legend I'm not sure how big of a draw he actually is in this day and age. I'd need to check his segments in breakdowns to see that for myself). I'll have to wait until Friday or Saturday to do it since that's where my laptop is, so if anyone else wants to beat me to it, feel free. I'm interested myself in seeing if he really has never drawn well with a proven draw. The one I was thinking of at first was the Punk "shoot" on Laurinaitis in January a couple of weeks before the Rumble, but then I remembered Foley was there at the end of it and was there for a good enough time where he'd have brought in viewers if he was going to.
But hell, Laurinaitis could be considered a proven draw as well when he was an authority figure because of just that... he was an authority figure.
Then again, today in WWE what really draws exceptionally isn't an individual wrestler, but a great storyline.
By his marks. I'd love to live in a alternate universe where double standards and hypocrisy didn't exist but what fun would that be? I'm pretty sure that when Punk's segments bomb there are no Punk marks to be found in this thread yet if they don't there'll all here proclaiming him as some super draw and having a go at Randy Orton lol.
:lmao Did you even read that before you posted it? You basically said Punk can draw when he's with somebody else who draws better than him and if not then he can't lol. What point are you trying to make?
I don't even know why you would want to do all that tbh. Why waste your time? You just said the only people you consider to be draws in WWE right now are Rock, Cena, HHH, Lesnar and Taker. If you want to call Punk a draw then you're putting him up there with these guys and he isn't. It's as simple as that. But hey, if you want to trawl through a bazillion breakdowns to make yourself feel better about Punk's drawing ability then be my guest lol. It still won't prove anything. He isn't consistent, the times he has done really well he's been paired with a bigger name and he has flat out bombed in a few instances too which doesn't help his case. A few months back I remember calling Punk a semi-draw but I'm starting to take that back now tbh. I understand that there is more to consider than just 1 guy and of course, the 3 hour shows aren't helping thing but sooner or later you have to wonder just what it's going to take. I suppose they have one last shot with Rocky heading into the Rumble and if that doesn't work then I really don't know.
@Deso - You are right about the new format and I touched upon that above. The thing is though, this is the way it is now. At the beginning we didn't know how things were going to turn out but by this stage we've been able to establish some patterns etc. This is what Raw is and this is the format in which they have to build their stars now. So far it most certainly isn't working because week after week the losses are coming and coming, especially in the third hour which really is killing them. But when even your main program involving Mr WWE himself John Cena and your invigorated WWE Champion can't pull back the viewers then you're in trouble. HHH is one example but I'm curious to see how other big names will perform when we get them on the show in the coming months. I guess that's the only way we'll be able to know for sure, if it's truly the 3 hour format or if it's the current talent/direction/creative/whatever. If Triple H can still manage to get over 5 million people to watch him then I reckon Rock will be able to best that. If so then what does that tell us? It is still possible but only with the right people.
Well, that is what I'm getting at with my point about the three hours being too much, Starbuck. If even Cena has seen his drawing superpowers diminished by this format, then anyone who's not a legendary part-timer who the audience can't get burned out on simply because they're so seldom around (Triple H, Lesnar, Rock, Taker) is probably going to suffer. Now the part-timers like those aforementioned four gentlemen are the "special events"; and this line of thinking is hugely reinforced by the move to three hours, because like I say, it has, simply put, reduced the emphasis on WWE's Monday Night Raw as being "must-see television" for wrestling fans, and of course casuals are the first ones to become... more... casual... in their viewing habits. It's probably going to take a Triple H or an Undertaker or a Rock showing up for a 10:00pm segment or an overrun segment to truly compel most audience members and the vast majority of casuals to either stay around in the first place throughout the run of a program or at least to tune in for them.
It's a phenomenon that is somewhat difficult to fully explain, but it does remind me of of the WCW Nitro situation when they moved to three hours. Although to be perfectly fair, one thing TNT did was replay Nitro right after Nitro finished airing, and at least USA isn't doing that with Raw. It should also be noted that WCW started up the Goldberg push in the weeks following the move to three hours, and Ryback's push on Raw sort of fits in that general timeline with WWE's move to three hours on Monday nights.
Cena's powers have been diminishing long before the 3 hours though. And while he isn't as dominating as he used to be, he still manages to pop very impressive numbers now and again. The match vs. Big Show a while back being one of them iirc. I just wonder how they will be able to NOT burn people out on particular guys with a weekly 3 hour show. They sort of did it this week with Cena only appearing for 15 mins at the end but if they do that every week will that result in more people tuning in to see him when he's on because they miss him or more people tuning out because he's not there lol? I really don't know what they can do. If you have 3 hours of TV to fill every week, it's most definitely going to be harder to keep guys fresh and intriguing because people will get burnt out a lot quicker. One has to wonder if they can truly create must see TV given the length of the show and the current environment for wrestling right now. We haven't seen somebody come along who has truly captivated the masses to the point where they tune in no matter when they appear or how many times. I wonder if it's still possible tbh. They haven't made things any easier on themselves by switching to 3 hours that's for sure.
It seems the general consensus found between Starbuck and DesolationRow's posts is shared by the majority of viewers, posters here and likely management themselves:
3 hours is too long to sit through.
One positive that may emerge, however, is how this unflattering format may urge the big boss and his cronies to step up their creative game for the product and for their network's benefit. They have to fight to get people to stay tuned in this time around instead of resting back on their laurels, hands on heads and chortling amongst themselves about those schmucks stuck in TNA .
I think the only effective way to prove punk is a draw to the internet fans is with PPV buys. Ratings are not going to help in that case, even if he can draw over million viewers at top of the hour or overrun occasionally, its gonna get dismissed as a one night deal and forgotten because thats how the Internet Community operates. But if he can manage to show strong PPV numbers main eventing with a lesser star, it can be factually proved that he is a draw. Just my opinion on the matter.
Yeah, and now everyone should forget this Raw and name it one of the worst just because of the viewers. Who cares? fact is the show was booked greatly and IMO was the best 3 hour show since the 1000th Raw.
and i'm pretty sure the Kane/Bryan segment's get low ratings because when the camera's switch to backstage, people change the channel. Backstage segments do bad in general. It feels like an ad more than something thats part of the show. But i'm pretty sure they will do better ratings because the fans DO enjoy kane and bryan.
some jsut want wrestling over backstage segments or hugging. Its not their fault its what WWE is giving them. The re-match they had last week with Kofi/R-truth if not mistaken did good in numbers. Their hug after the match only was 2 minutes of the 15 minutes (next quarter) last week I hardly put major blame on that. the first time they hugged was like 15 minutes; talk about dragging out like hell, you can't blame people tuning out. A hug lasts only 30 seconds not 15 minutes.
but overall if they just have them wrestle 90 % of the time over skits & hugging (they haven't done that since last week Raw seems like BOD is slowing down on that angle along with I am Tag team Champions crap) than they would be fine. But like others said they like to overkill with the comedy stuff like with AJ/Punk/Bryan (it was fine with Kane involved since it was still fresh, but after he left the scene it got overdone fast)
I know Starbuck spoke for me on this one, but Punk gets the peak of the show at barely above 4 million at the 9PM spot in a segment featuring Mick Foley, a legend that has returned for the first time since WM28 if I'm not mistaken, and following two quarters that lost half a million viewers and he's declared as a "draw" here. LOL.
Thank God the Punk/Cena feud #32159739175 is failing to draw. That feud lost what made it special a year ago and now they are trying to use it in hopes of better ratings but it's irrelevant and done with. Keep fallin', ratings, keep fallin'!
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