By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

WWE Raw on Monday, July 30 dropped off 20-22 percent in TV viewing from last week's huge audience for the Raw 1,000 episode.

Raw scored a 3.08 rating for all three hours and 3.23 rating for the standard two hours. The overall rating was down 20 percent from Raw 1,000 and was the lowest since June 4, which led to Vince McMahon returning to WWE TV to jumpstart Raw 1,000 build-up.

- Raw averaged 4.49 million viewers for all three hours and 4.71 million viewers for the standard two hours. The overall audience was down 22 percent from Raw 1,000 and smallest audience since June 4.

- Looking at the important new first hour, Raw averaged 4.06 million viewers at 8:00 p.m. EST, down from 5.44 million new first hour viewers last week. Monday's first hour did top recent first hours for three-hour Raws on April 23 and June 11, but only by 100,000 viewers compared to June 11.

Also important for the first hour is the demographic comparison to what USA Network was drawing with NCIS re-reruns. Among m18-34, Raw drew a 1.96 rating vs. NCIS's 0.55 two weeks ago in the timeslot. Similarly, m18-49 was a 2.10 rating vs. NCIS's 0.68. Women watching Raw were also up one-tenth vs. NCIS.

- On cable TV Monday night, Raw ranked #2 in overall viewers behind TNT's "The Closer." Raw ranked #1 among key male demos, even counting the additional first hour.

Hour by Hour Break Down

8:00 p.m. EST: 2.79 rating / 4.06 million viewers
9:00 p.m. EST: 3.21 rating / 4.72 million viewers
10:00 p.m. EST: 3.25 rating / 4.70 million viewers

Caldwell's Analysis: A bit more of a drop-off from Raw 1,000 than expected, but last week's show was the type of show to attract every casual viewer possible, then have most of that audience check out for a few weeks. Also, WWE did not promote items in-advance for this week's show, especially missing an opportunity to promote Randy Orton's TV return.

In the big picture, it will require a few weeks to see where the three-hour Raw Era settles in on a weekly basis, especially going up against the Olympics, before Raw faces tough fall season competition. Considering Raw held up fairly well against the Olympics juggernaut, though, and fared well on cable TV Monday night, there is some momentum behind the show.

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