As expected, Monday’s Christmas Eve episode of Raw did a record low rating with 1.78 million viewers.
While the number can be thrown out as all expectations were that it would do a record low, the number was somewhat surprising.
The audience dropped 30 percent from the prior week.
The good news is the audience held better than any Raw in a long time, as the third hour actually beat the first hour. What that seems to indicate is that the most hardcore of fans were watching and they largely stuck with the show.
The last time the third hour was higher than the first hour was on July 2, which was the only time that took place all year.
The last time Raw aired on Christmas Eve was in 2012, which did 3.15 million viewers.
The Denver Broncos vs. Oakland Raiders NFL game did 8.60 million viewers, down 34 percent from the prior week, so the Raw drop was mirrored by the NFL.
Everything was down on cable greatly and the major news shows that beat Raw for the most part didn’t even run new episodes and Raw ended up fourth place on cable behind NFL-related programming on ESPN.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 1.75 million viewers
9 p.m. 1.79 million viewers
10 p.m. 1.78 million viewers