[chbulls1_23]

Originally Posted by The Sandrone

"If the numbers were good Punk marks would credit him with it thats for sure."

If the numbers were good, Punk haters would never credit him and it would always be someone else, that's for sure.

Here's the fact of the matter, the numbers are just going to keep going down, slowly with Vince around, but still surely. Vince coming back gave it a nice bump, but the numbers are going to follow a downward trend if WWE keeps up with the lazy storylines they produce. Even if they bring Lesnar back for a few weeks, only the first week they advertise Lesnar will see an increase, and then it will keep going down from that number until The Rock comes back. Then it will go down for a few weeks until Mania time rolls around, and then that combined with having Rock, Lesnar, Undertaker, and maybe HHH to go on top of Vince, Cena, and Punk, will we see ratings remain steady as they'll have another starpower to go around throughout the whole show in all the main segments without having to use someone twice. That is when ratings won't be on a downward trend. The other way to keep ratings from going in a downward trend is to come up with creative, interesting storylines that people will tune in and see what happens each week. But until WWE have writers that can do that, or they can find another megastar on the roster, they'll have to rely on these old big drawing super/megastars to bump the numbers up for a week or two.

WWE's gonna be in some serious shit when they don't have those guys as a crutch. Bringing back old talent will only stop the bleeding for so long.

[KO Bossy]

Originally Posted by Falkono

Simple because he is to blame...

Everybody knows the end of the show is the most important part of the programme. It is what the show builds towards. It will have an event/cliffhanger that leads into the following show. It will be the main angle in WWE.
People leave during the show as lets be honest sometimes its so bad your go watch something else.
But if the final viewing number is lower then the start or second hour number it means less people wanted to tune in to see the end. The end should be the highest viewed part of the show. If the segment before it lost 1m viewers and the final segment gained 900k viewers tjats still 100k down on the highest point. Thats what is important. People are not tuning in to watch the end in the same volume they once did. Seeing as Punk ends the show I fail to see how people cannot attribute his popularity to that. If Rock ended the show it would be the highest peak in terms of viewership in the show.

He's closed the show about a dozen times in the past 12 months...you're using that as an accurate gauge?

Here's the thing-the Fed has kept Punk from the main event for so long that people started to view him and the title as unimportant. So now in the past 2 months they're suddenly telling us "no, they're actually really important, you should care about them." Well...you've spent 10 months saying and acting otherwise, it will take a little while to undo the damage done...

This directly relates to what Choke2Death was saying about it being Punk's fault for not bringing in more viewers, but not for losing them. Last November until this September, Punk hasn't been treated like a champion. Name one other WWE champion in history who has been booked this way-clearly second fiddle to somebody else, having to deal with the leftovers of attention that the #1 guy doesn't receive, almost never put in the main event. All of this says "this guy isn't as important as this other guy." So people think that. Now they're doing damage control and things are messy...what did you expect, a bed of roses? They dug this hole themselves.

As for you, you said "well if the Rock was in that segment, it would be the highest peak. That's because the Rock has never received the type of shitty, inconsistent and illogical booking that Punk has, and was always treated as a top tier, #1 guy from the end of 1999 and on. If he had, people wouldn't care nearly as much about him today.

It all comes down to one simple thing-people will tune in to watch a guy whose name means something. Guys like John Cena, the Fed has made his name mean something over the years. In this year long reign of Punk's, what has the Fed made his name mean? Second best. And that right there is why Punk's drawing potential is hurting.

[Gamblor]

Another thing you'll notice as far as average numbers is the numbers have been going down for years. Look at the average yearly rating for Raws since 2002:

2002- 4.01
2003- 3.76
2004- 3.67
2005- 3.81
2006- 3.90
2007- 3.61
2008- 3.27
2009- 3.57
2010- 3.28
2011- 3.21
2012- 3.10

Now keep this in mind, generally the trend is downward but look at when the overall numbers were bumped from the previous year. 2005 was the rise of Cena, Batista, and had the red-hot Batista/HHH feud, as well as the Edge/Hardy feud, which I'm not sure what ratings it did, but it was red-hot based on reactions. 2006 had Edge when he was a draw, had Cena when he was solidly the top guy and the top draw, had HBK/Vince, DX returning and facing the McMahons, and had a lot of shit going on. 2007 had for the most part Cena's long reign but nothing spectacular. 2008 saw a big decrease which probably gives us an idea what Raw's 2005 and 2006 would be like if they were on auto-pilot. Raw in 08 lost Cena to injury for 3 of the last 4 months of the year when ratings were really bad not to mention losing HHH to SD as well and not getting someone like Undertaker in return. 2009 had the whole Orton/McMahons angle, and Orton/HHH did well for the first half of the year, and Orton/Cena did okay for the end of the year. However they also had DX returning that helped bump business up for the last 4 months. 2010 saw things go back down, though higher than 2008, but probably would've been lower without The Nexus angle. Though that angle lost steam after the first couple of months and without any big draw on the Nexus individually, it wasn't able to keep the numbers up. Orton also became champ at that time and this is where the comparisons to Punk get made... he failed to help bring numbers up, and actually got the lowest rating in years for Raw (2.75) as champion. Not blaming Orton for the number, but he didn't help things, just like Nexus didn't help things, why? Because everything was on auto-pilot by that point and Nexus got killed at Summerslam. 2011 and 2012 we see things get even lower. Punk certainly isn't helping, but now not even Vince is really helping. Cena isn't really helping. Guys like Rock, Taker, and Lesnar as I mentioned in my post will only help so much on there own and together they'd only make a difference while they're there. Once they're gone the show's ratings are going to drop down to continue with the downward trend Raw's been on.

There just hasn't been any mega angles to keep people interested and while having a naturally appealing superstar who draws in fans helps, but it's not necessary if the writing is amazing. Okay, it might be necessary to have another Attitude Era for both to be present, but one or the other would suffice. And for the sake of quality television, I'd like to believe trying to get more interesting storylines in the books is what WWE wants. Even numbers like in 2004 would be nice at this point and I firmly believe are attainable if WWE put on hot storylines throughout all the divisions for the entire year, even if they have no megastar present.

[charmed1]

I\m not blaming Punk for the bad rating that belongs to them all but enough of the WWE is keeping Punk down crap. I'll paraphrase Vince here,,"Punk screwed Punk."

Bryan has been put in crappier situations than Punk and came out on top, unfortunately Punk cant handle it as well

[Jotunheim]

Originally Posted by Choke2Death

I didn't say a word about Ryback beating him at HIAC or Cena becoming WWE Champion so stop putting words in my mouth. (although I would rather have them as champions because I can't stand Punk but that's a different topic)

and if they fail to bring in ratings (because they will), who will you blame?, Chris benoit?

[Snoth]

People continuing to say that ratings are "terrible" when given the TV environment and context their ratings are fine.

Did you know that RAW brings in similar 18-49 demo rating as some of the new shows on broadcast television? They also are the top ranking scripted cable show on Mondays now that there are no more new Pawn Stars. 1.4 18-49 demographic rating for 3 full hours on second most valuable night, Monday = $$$$.

Don't even know why people even look at aggregate viewership. The only thing advertisers pay for is 18-49 demo rating....And if you argue that the low viewership is killing the company because it signals the company is losing fans. Viewership is down across the board for all TV. Though I'm not arguing that WWE is as popular now as the AE, just that the company is by no means dying.

[DesolationRow]

Buster MVPosey and Ryan VogelSTRONG outdrawing the entire WWE product all by themselves. GIANTS baseball killin' Vince!

[The-Rock-Says]

You can't blame one wrestler for an overall rating. You look at their segment number and if it went up or down, simple.

Simple fact is. The overall product fucking sucks and no one wants to watch it. That's why the overall rating is in the 2s.

Just look at the product. I can skip through a 3 hour RAW in half an hour. When the product get's better, then the rating will.

Just look at when Brock Lesnar came back. The big bawl he had with Cena in the ring. It was great and he busted him up and there was agents and other wrestlers out to spilt them up. Just badass and something different.

Then 5 minutes later they have the 3 cunts acting like cunts.

When Steve Austin was on top, he wasn't the only one that was cutting from the pack and doing edgy stuff.

The whole product changed. FUCK does this product ever suck.

[Amuroray]

CM punk is now the worst drawing long champion since diesel.

Wow.

But overall the product is a joke.Awful/no story lines. Flat characters,no atmosphere.

Just terrible.Everything about it is. Rock cant save it.Its just too much. The rock v cena feud was a shining light in a rather shitty dark product.

Brock cena was going great but it stopped to quickly.

[CoZa]

Punk isnt the main problem, the whole product stinks.