By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

Last night's episode of WWE Raw scored a 3.28 rating, which was down nearly seven percent compared to last week's strong 3.50 rating.

TV viewership over the course of the two-hour show was 4.67 million viewers, which was down ten percent compared to last week's 5.19 million viewers.

The first hour averaged 4.52 million viewers, then increased to 4.81 million viewers in the second hour for John Cena vs. Chris Jericho, Randy Orton vs. The Miz, and the conclusion of this week's Summerslam hype on Raw.

It's worth noting last week's Raw on July 26 was the high-end of TV ratings and viewership for a summer episode of Raw.

The five-week ratings average before last night's show was a 3.37 rating. The five-week TV viewership average before last night's show was 4.82 million viewers. Last night's Raw was down from those averages, but by a smaller margin compared to a direction comparison to last week's show.

Looking at the demographic numbers, Raw was actually up among adults 18-34. Last night's show scored a 1.64 rating compared to a 1.59 rating in the demo last week. Among males 18-34, Raw was flat compared to last week.

Last night's Raw was essentially flat with the five-week average among males 18-49, males 12-34, and males 12-17.

It's apparent the week-to-week difference in the ratings is due to last week's show (7/26) scoring a 3.85 rating among m12-17, then last night's show (8/2) scoring a 2.88 rating in the demo. Last night's Raw was still flat with the five-week average due to the demo fluctuating with high peaks and valleys the past five weeks.

The pattern of Raw TV ratings over the last five weeks is as follows:

-- July 5: 3.35 rating
-- July 12: 3.32 rating
-- July 19: 3.39 rating
-- July 26: 3.50 rating
-- Aug. 2: 3.28 rating
Average: 3.37 rating.

Caldwell's Analysis: Last night's show had the feel of a "drop in the ratings" type of episode. It wasn't necessarily because the show was taped, but because WWE was so focused on hyping Summerslam. They took an approach where they were willing to sacrifice typical casual viewers (younger males) looking for "a hot angle" in order to sell potential PPV customers on Summerslam. That's a good trade-off. And last week's show was at the very high-end of a typical episode of Raw during the summer season. Last night's Raw was only slightly off compared to the five-week average, which isn't a bad trade-off for trying to increase PPV buys.

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