From the Observer:
If there was a key to the Raw rating, the tease that A.J. was going to marry the person she left the ring with worked. The gain of 711,000 viewers for the overrun is normal level (a good 3.61 overrun), but this was done without John Cena in the segment, and with C.M. Punk and Daniel Bryan, who have never moved ratings big. Plus, there was gigantic increase in teenage boys watching for the overrun only that wasn’t there for the rest of the show. That demo hovered between a 2.7 and 3.2 rating the entire show, but hit a 4.4 for the overrun. Overrun growth was 3.2 to 4.4 in that demo, 2.5 to 3.1 in Males 18-49, 1.2 to 1.4 in Girls 12-17 and stayed at 1.1 with Women 18-49. It should be noted that it’s the marrying gimmick and not the personalities since A.J., Punk nor Bryan spiked ratings in that demo in their interview segment this week or any other week in this storyline. Whether it’s a sign of things to come, or something meaningless where the tease of a marriage sparked interest that isn’t going to sustain will be determined in the future.
As far as comparisons to the week before, Boys 12-17 did a 3.1 (up 3%, all due to the overrun), Males 18-49 did a 2.5 (same as last week), Girls 12-17 did a 1.1 (down 8%) and Women 18-49 did a 1.1 (down 15%). That’s also notable because the wedding teases usually inflates the female audience more than the men, plus Home Run Derby figured to hurt among men, not women. The male skew was 67.4%. Raw was in 5th place for the night on cable.
For quarters, the long opening monologue with A.J., Punk and Bryan along with Sheamus vs. Jack Swagger lost 74,000 viewers. Christian & Tyson Kidd vs. Tensai & Dolph Ziggler and the Lawler vs. Cole angle building their match lost 416,000 viewers. Brodus Clay vs. Drew McIntyre plus Stephanie McMahon talking about the angle where she and HHH were to renew their vows gained 102,000 viewers. John Cena & Kane vs. Big Show & Chris Jericho gained 66,000 viewers, which is not good for that time period. What happened is they did about a 280,000 gain at 10 p.m., which is lower than usual, but then lost those viewers when the match went longer and went through the second break. Heath Slater vs. Sin Cara and his angle with Bob Backlund lots 21,000 viewers. Lawler vs. Cole and the Hornswoggle as General Manager reveal also lost 21,000 viewers.
Quote:
A note regarding updated universes of the various cable stations. With people very slowly switching away from satellite and dishes, there has been a small drop, not enough yet to really matter but it is a worrisome trend.
As of the end of June, the USA Network was available in 99,301,000 homes, which is 86.6% of the homes in the U.S. They peaked at nearly 101 million a year ago. Almost every station has shown similar declines. Spike TV is in 98,623,000 homes after peaking at more than 100 million. We don’t have a number for FX, but it’s in the 98.5 million range. Syfy is in 98,006,000 homes. MTV 2 is in about 75 million homes and Fuel is in 36.2 million homes.
Analyses of the breakdowns are a little questionable. Great to see that Bryan/Punk/AJ are sustaining and gaining viewers.