WWE & TNA Ratings: I think A Tough Season Lies Ahead

[Jack-Hammer]

Over the course of the past few months, neither the ratings for WWE Raw or TNA Impact Wrestling have been stellar. That's not to say that they're putting on bad programming, some like what one company is putting out and maybe not so much with the other but that's normal, but the numbers haven't been "great".

This past Monday, Raw drew a 3.00 flat rating with 4.2 million viewers. It's true that Monday was Labor Day but Raw has been consistently flirting with the low 3s for a while now. Last night's episode of Impact Wrestling drew a 1.02 rating with 1.358 million viewers.

Raw has had consistent competition from the likes of Pawn Stars, The Closer and Rizzoli & Isles, which are three shows in which new episodes consistently draw north of 6 million viewers. IW had competition last night from news coverage of President Obama's speech, Jersey Shore and pro football.

This Monday is the debut of Monday Night Football and it's simply a juggernaut that'll probably take a bite out of every show's audience and things don't really look any better for TNA on Thursday nights.

Personally, I'm hoping that what we're seeing right now are the lowest of the low ends of the Raw & IW tv ratings. You know, the hardcore viewers that seem to consistently stick with the shows. If they continue to drop, it won't be too long before the brass of both companies go into some fully fledged panic mode even though peaks & valleys are always present when it comes to viewership.

 

[Mustang Sally]

I agree with your reasoning....and add one more thing: there's too damn much of it. With WWE, there's five hours of original programming a week (if NxT is running). That's a hell of a lot of writing to do.....and we constantly hear Creative criticized for not keeping things fresh.

I wish I knew what the ratings were for the original Monday Night RAW that emanated from Manhattan Center. Back then, it was the only original programming WWE had (and it was only 1 hour a week, not two). If I recall, WWE had two other 1 hour shows a week, but they consisted of recaps of recent events.

Next year, to add to the over-saturation, WWE will be introducing their own channel. Jeez.

This is the way lots of companies do business; if they've latched onto something good, they bombard the audience with as much of it as possible.....until folks get tired of it and move on to something else.

Perhaps WWE and TNA have reached that point, too.......and it will cause a period of down ratings along with the other factors mentioned by the OP. Our core of fans will always be there, but ratings will stay flat due to overexposure.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

JH and others - forgive me if I am spamming but I am not 100% on cable ratings. Is a cable rating a reflection of the percentage of cable viewers watching a particular cable network?

If so,Thurs. football on NBC is far more detrimental to TNA's viewership than their cable rating where Mon. football on ESPN is more evenly detrimental to Raw's rating and viewership.

Either way football shares a piece of wrestling's core demographic and they get hurt. I am just curious if I understand ratings correctly. Thanks.

 

[Bill.]

You know, people can just DVR all of these shows, so ratings aren't necessarily accurate. So there might be more people watching SD & Raw then the ratings say.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

people DVR the shows you now they can watch them whenever.

I dont even like football ( or any sport beside wrestling for that matter) so i will keep viewing,

I think that RAW will be fine as long as its entertaining. Impact has begin to do shows outside of the impact zone so they are doing fine as well.