Hours after the official news of the company’s sale to Endeavor, WWE attracted a giant audience for the Raw following WrestleMania 39.
The April 3rd episode from Los Angeles averaged 2,260,000 viewers and approximately 991,000 (0.76) in the 18-49 demographic, ranking first among all cable programming, per Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
It ranked first among cable originals with nothing else close to Raw’s audience. However, there was major sports competition on network programming with CBS’ airing of the NCAA men’s basketball final that averaged 14,693,000 viewers and 3.73 in the 18-49 demo, which began at 9:12 p.m. ET.
The audience was up by 23 percent from last week with the 18-49 demo growing by 36.5 percent over last week’s go-home edition.
It was Raw’s largest 18-49 audience since February 16, 2020, for an episode that included a No Holds Barred match between Randy Orton and Matt Hardy week before the pandemic would restrict audiences from attending.
It was the show’s highest overall viewership since the Raw is XXX special this past January and included all three hours of the program topping two million viewers.
The show was aided by a commercial-free opening hour that attracted 2,471,000 viewers and 0.85 in the 18-49 demographic. It included an opening address by Paul Levesque making reference to the sale – followed by an in-ring segment involving Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes to set up the night’s main event, and the tease that Brock Lesnar would have a rare match on television.
In the second hour, the show averaged 2,255,000 viewers and 0.76, which did have commercial interruptions.
The final hour averaged 2,054,000 viewers and 0.68 in the 18-49 demo. It was the most-watched third hour of Raw since March 16, 2020, which was the first week inside the empty Performance Center during the pandemic and included a re-airing of that year’s men’s Royal Rumble match.
In the 18-49 demographic, males grew 35 percent this week while the female growth was 42 percent.
Adults 18-34 we up by 42 percent this week, which was an unbelievable number they attracted in this demo for the week.
Adults 35-49 increased by 33 percent and the 50+ demo jumped from 0.84 last week to 0.99.
Because of the gigantic first hour, there was a larger decrease in the audience throughout the show with viewership dropping by 17 percent and the 18-49 audience falling 20 percent from the first to the final hour.
In Canada, it was also a strong performance the show averaging 426,600 viewers and 198,100 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360, which were increases of nine and fourteen percent respectively.
It was Raw’s largest audience in Canada in years and the highest among the weeks we have data for.
