Speculation on if Vince McMahon Will Make Changes to WWE Programming After Poor Ratings

There has been some speculation on if Vince McMahon will make changes to WWE programming after poor ratings have come in seemingly week after week. As previously reported, the June 29 edition of “Monday Night Raw” was the lowest rated and viewed show of 2015 for WWE, and didn’t have any direct sports competition on television during the time slot.

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter wonders what this might mean for WWE creative and programming, as McMahon is known for reacting to numbers like these in different ways. He writes,

“‘RAW’ on 6/29 fell to an 18 year seasonal low, dating back to the period when Nitro was handing Raw a beating, doing a 2.51 rating and 3.46 million viewers (1.43 viewers per home).

The previous non-Holiday low outside of football season was set on 5/4, a 2.55 rating and 3.57 million viewers. Aside from holiday shows that fell on July 4th, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, it was the least-watched episode of the show since 1997, except for a December 3, 2012 episode against a New York Giants vs. Washington Redskins game that did monster ratings. Raw that night did a 2.52 rating and 3.43 million viewers. The October 22, 2012, episode against the NFL did a 2.48 rating and 3.55 million viewers, which would be the only lower rating since the Monday Night Wars, except for a holiday show.

What makes this number so bad is that there was no sports competition of note, with the biggest sports event being a routine baseball game that did 669,000 viewers on ESPN. So there was no reason for this number other than a lack of interest in the product. The show had no Brock Lesnar, Stephanie McMahon or HHH. But nobody would have known that ahead of time, and the first hour was the low point, so it was that people weren’t there at the start. It wasn’t that they found out key people weren’t there and tuned out early. Raw was still the highest rated show on cable for the night.

DirecTV viewers who have season passes did not get this show if they DVR’d it (for whatever reason, those people got the Tuesday airing DVR’d instead), which would have made a small difference, but not nearly enough to have kept it from being the 18-year seasonal low.

With the lack of excuses for this number, and a pattern of mostly low numbers (with the exception of shows the day after PPV shows) since mid-April, I expect a reaction from Vince McMahon. Three hours is too long, but it has ben three hours for years. Taking the focus off John Cena as the top guy and putting it more on Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose may be growing pains that are necessary for the future. But a big part of the issue is they’ve made a decision to use Cena in a different way, rarely on last, and they haven’t been able to come close to creating another Cena, while the biggest other star, Brock Lesnar, is a part-timer.”

Editor’s Note:

Meanwhile…Cesaro and Cena had possibly the best singles match of the year so far…and Cesaro is probably going to get no sort of push after that kind of showing. I’m more concerned about that than if McMahon reacts to ratings.