While both Raw and SmackDown have held up fine with taped shows in the past, including a taped Raw from three days earlier in November that saw numbers increase, that didn’t happen this week.
Last night’s Raw averaged 1.84 million viewers, down 10 percent from last week’s non-holiday modern era low. The only Raw in modern history that this show didn’t beat was last year’s Christmas Eve episode that did 1.78 million viewers.
The Minnesota Vikings vs. Green Bay Packers NFL game did 13.57 million viewers, and that was part of the reason, but several NFL games this season have done in that range.
Still, Raw was 12th for the night, and aside from NFL-related programming and news shows, it fell behind only one other show, the Holiday Baking Championships on the Food Network that did 1.87 million viewers.
In 18-49, aside from NFL-related shows, Raw finished only behind one episode of Love and Hip Hop Hollywood on VH1.
The record low aspect was expected going in, but not a decline at this level. Still, it is a one-week aberration of being taped and the show went against a huge football game.
As far as the first-to-third hour drops, which were normal level, women 18-49 dropped 22 percent, men 18-49 dropped ten percent, teenage girls dropped eight percent, and teenage boys increased 17 percent, while over 50 fell 12 percent.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 1.96 million viewers
9 p.m. 1.86 million viewers
10 p.m. 1.69 million viewers