How Was WWE RAW Viewership With Hulk Hogan, John Cena & Others Returning After Low Holiday Numbers?
Monday's WWE RAW, featuring WWE Intercontinental Champion Dean Ambrose retaining over Seth Rollins in a Falls Count Anywhere main event, drew 2.324 million viewers. This is up 18% from last week's 1.968 million viewers for the New Year's Eve taped episode. This is the best red brand viewership since the December 17 post-TLC episode, which drew 2.547 million viewers and was the last non-holiday non-taped episode, and the week before, which drew 2.194 million viewers.
The first RAW of 2019 featured a loaded line-up with advertised returns by WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan, John Cena, Braun Strowman and WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar, plus advertised matches and segments – a Lumberjack Match for the RAW Tag Team Titles with champions Chad Gable & Bobby Roode defending against The Revival, Elias vs. Baron Corbin and Alexa Bliss' new "Moment of Bliss" talk show with guest RAW Women's Champion Ronda Rousey.
To compare, the first RAW of 2018, which aired on January 1, drew 2.87 million viewers, so it's a 19% drop from the first episode last year.
For this week's show, the first hour drew 2.609 million viewers (last week's hour 1 – 2.035 million), the second hour drew 2.294 million viewers (last week's hour 2 – 2.026 million) and the final hour drew 2.070 million viewers (last week's hour 3 – 1.784 million).
RAW was #10 for the night in viewership on cable, behind 5 programs related to the Alabama vs. Clemson College Football Championship game, SportsCenter at midnight, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Five and Last Word. RAW was #7 in the 18-49 demographic this week, behind college football coverage and SportsCenter at midnight.
The Alabama vs. Clemson game topped the night in the 18-49 demographic and in viewership this week with 24.322 million viewers, just for the game at 8pm. The game drew more than 75 million total viewers for ESPN last night. SportsCenter ranked #6 on the Cable Top 150 with 3.882 million viewers.
The Bachelor on ABC drew 5.127 million viewers on broadcast TV in the 8pm hour while Big Bang Theory drew 6.366 million viewers on CBS, AGT Champions drew 9.962 million viewers on NBC, The Resident drew 1.970 million viewers on Fox and CW's Flash drew 684,000 viewers, all in the 8pm hour on broadcast TV.
Below is our 2019 RAW Viewership Tracker:
January 7 Episode: 2.324 million viewers
January 14 Episode:
2018 Total: 149.628 million viewers over 53 episodes
2018 Average: 2.823 million viewers per episode
2017 Total: 156.971 million viewers over 52 episodes
2017 Average: 3.018 million viewers per episode