The news for Monday Night Raw just keeps getting worse. While it’s been reported that the ratings have been low, this past week’s show reached a low of historic proportions.
In the latest The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that Monday’s 1.75 rating was the second lowest in the history of the Raw and that only one episode of WCW Monday Nitro had ever dipped below that. The Nitro show that did go lower than a 1.75 came only four months before the entire show was cancelled.
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While it seems this week’s low ratings could be blamed on the Memorial Day holiday, it’s actually down 19.1% from last year’s Memorial Day episode, which scored a 2.19.
In a recent Forbes article, Alfred Konuwa discussed the declining ratings and the possibility of WWE considering a move back to a 2 hour show.
“WWE moved to a three-hour format in 2012, and since then, viewership totals have seen year-to-year dropoffs,” Konuwa wrote. “Raw’s negative ratings pattern since moving to three hours indicates viewer burnout, and it just might be time for the promotion to consider moving back to two hours.”
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“Raw’s three-hour format was mostly a financial decision made to increase WWE‘s television rights fees. These fees ballooned by 70% in 2014 following WWE‘s multi-year deal with NBC Universal, which agreed to pay $150 million annually to air its flagship shows. Last year, during the Bernstein Global Future of Media & Telecommunications Summit, WWE CFO George Barrios noted its U.S. television deal expires in 2019.”
Konuwa also pointed out that unless the trend is reversed, it’s very likely WWE will lose their footing when it’s time to work out a new television deal.
“With a fresh round of negotiations coming up in less than two years, and WWE failing to garner significant interest from other networks in 2014, USA stands to have the leverage to land a more network-friendly deal once again.”
WWE has all the talent in the world to put on a good program, but it may be time to start looking into new measures of how to best use them. At some point, someone is going to need to face the blame for the lack of interest in the product.
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[H/T WrestlingInc]
