WWE Raw Ratings Report: How did “Wildcard Rule” and tease of Reigns returning to Raw plus WWE Title match do compared to last week’s shockingly low rating?

At what point during this 19 year decline in ratings has the issue not been blamed on things external to Vince McMahon? pic.twitter.com/skhBBYO5Yk

— Jake Barnett (@barnettjake) May 7, 2019

The May 6 episode of WWE Monday Night Raw drew a 1.63 rating, well below last year’s 1.94 rating and the two years ago rating this week of 1.90. It was above last week’s 1.56, perhaps given a boost due to Roman Reigns vowing to appear on Raw despite WWE social media saying he wasn’t invited.

The first hour of Raw drew 2.468 million viewers, up from 2.336 million last week, but otherwise the lowest first-hour non-holiday viewership since last Dec. 10. The second hour dropped to 2.240 million, a virtual tie with last week’s second hour (2.241 million). The third hour, which headlined with Kofi Kingston’s WWE Title defense against the returning Daniel Bryan in a WrestleMania rematch, stayed barely above two million viewers with 2.024 million viewers. That’s above last week’s 1.898 third hour. The third hour viewership was the second-worst non-holiday viewership hour of all time for Raw (for a WWE Title match!).

The first-to-third hour drop-off was 444,000, more than last week, actually. The average drop this year headed into this week was 406,000. So they’re starting much lower and dropping even more than average in recent weeks.

The yearly average rating for Raw is 1.83. One year ago, the average through the first week of May was 2.26. Two years ago the average at this point was 2.25. So ratings had steadied in 2018 compared to 2017, but have dropped sharply and alarmingly since last fall and since the new TV deals were signed with Fox and NBC Universal.

Does Vince McMahon's new Wildcard Rule address reasons you have been disenchanted with Raw & SD, i.e. wanting to see certain top stars more often on both shows to "mix things up"?

— Pro Wrestling Torch (@PWTorch) May 7, 2019

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