By James Caldwell, PWTorch columnist

Ouch. With the Raw ratings for last night coming in with an overall household rating below 3.0, WWE is returning to pre-800 episode levels just two weeks after the three-hour show "boosted" the rating to a 3.2.

The current benchmark for WWE is 3.0, but that would have been completely unacceptable just last year when the benchmark was 3.5 and 5 million viewers. Right now, WWE simply doesn't have a consistent audience when looking at the comparisons to last year's ratings.

First, though, the five and ten-week averages took a major hit with the rating for last night's show. The average viewership was down 8.12 percent from last week's post-800 episode rating. Averaging things out over a fairer five and ten-week period reveals more drops.

Last night's rating is down 4.87 percent from the five-week average of the previous five weeks of Raw TV. The rating is also down 4.39 percent from the ten-week average of programming from Sept. 8 to Nov. 10.

Comparing the five and ten week averages for the comparable period last year, WWE is down about 50,000 viewers. That's enough people to fill a medium-sized college football stadium who have lost interest in the product or simply aren't watching since November of last year.

Summary:

This week's Raw rating: 2.9 overall and 4.29 million viewers
Last week's Raw rating: 3.1 overall and 4.64 million viewers
Same week last year: 3.5 overall and 5.01 million viewers

Five week average: 4.45 million viewers
Ten week average: 4.46 million viewers
Five week last year average: 4.98 million viewers
Ten week last year average: 4.77 million viewers

RELATED STORY at PWTorch.com: Keller's summary of this week's Raw ratings.

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