Raw on 6/4 did a 2.92 rating and 4.28 million viewers. The show was only fifth for the night on cable. The biggest competition was the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. San Antonio Spurs NBA playoff semifinal head-to-head which did a 6.32 rating and 8.51 million viewers. Game three of the Stanley Cup finals, on NBC Sports (formerly Versus) did a 1.5 rating and 1.74 million viewers, which for a comparison is what Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver were doing on that station on a worse night of the week a few years back. An interesting note regarding Memorial Day and this week is that during the Raw hours on Memorial Day there were 71.11 million U.S. homes watching television. On 6/4, there were 71.23 million, or almost identical, so it not being Memorial Day isn’t why the rating was up. It was a combination of no Hatfields & McCoys and perhaps a show where John Cena was plugged heavily, although the rating was at the low end of the usual average.
As far as demos went, the show did 2.5 in Boys 12-17 (up 14%), 2.4 in Males 18-49 (same as last week), 0.9 in Girls 12-17 (up 50%) and 1.2 in Girls 18-49 (up 20%). That’s the difference between Cena and non-Cena, is Cena draws girls at a level nobody else on Raw does. The male skew was 67.8%
As far as ratings pattern, there was a lot that wasn’t good. The show started out strong for the Cena promo doing a 3.27 first quarter, but it dropped from there and never came back. What makes this bad is that this was a show booked for train wreck ratings, in the sense the whole thing was to build up Cena getting his hands on Michael Cole. Coming off the low rating, they did little for the PPV and just tried to get Cena all over the show and do all the tricks like the heel in his underwear being humiliated. It wasn’t to build programs but just to get that "we can’t turn away from this" mentality that has in the past been effective in drawing ratings. But it didn’t appear to work this time. The overrun with Cena vs. Cole, that they had built the whole show for, ended up being weak. In the segment-by-segment, Cole trying to get out of the match talking to Laurinaitis and the beginning of Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler lost 753,000 viewers, which is awful and points to the Cole thing not working this time. Can’t say much for Sheamus and Ziggler either. Although the finish of their match, the post-match beatdown by Alberto Del Rio, and Sin Cara vs. Hunico gained 302,000 viewers. Ryback’s debut on Raw in the handicap match lost 298,000 viewers. C.M. Punk vs. Kane in the 10 p.m. hour gained 340,000. The first part of the match did a 2.93 quarter and the finish got up to a 3.02. It’s a little less than an average gain for that slot but better than Punk has been doing of late. Kofi Kingston & R-Truth vs. Tyler Reks & Curt Hawkins lost 646,000 viewers. John Cena vs. Tensai gained 514,000 viewers, which is super strong for the 10:45 p.m. quarter. And Cena vs. Cole gained 299,000 viewers, which is weak for the overrun, but perhaps misleading in the sense the people who usually come in for the overrun came back early I guess due to Cena being in a match. But the overrun only did a 3.14 quarter.
By demo, this was the Cena gain at the end. Teenage boys went from 2.2 to 2.7. 18-49 men from 2.0 to 2.5. Teenage girls went from 0.8 to 1.3 and 18-49 women from 1.0 to 1.3.