WWE News: New Year’s Eve RAW Rating Increases, Holds In At #4 In Rankings (12/31/18)

How did WWE RAW do in the ratings on New Year’s Eve?

After what was expected to be a rough night in the ratings on Christmas Eve for WWE’s RAW last week (see last week’s numbers), it was another holiday to contend with this Monday and a second straight taped episode of the red brand. Would RAW be outdrawn by SmackDown Live again this week?

For that answer, we still have to wait until tomorrow. However, the numbers for this week’s New Year’s Eve episode of RAW have finally dropped and the show’s rating heads back up with a 1.968, increasing 10.9% from last week. Here’s how the final four weeks of numbers for the red brand in 2018 looked:

• December 10th: 2.194
• December 17th: 2.547
• December 24th: 1.775
• December 31st: 1.968

Although Christmas and New Year’s have certainly affected not only RAW’s ratings, but other programming as well (Monday Night Football also saw a 30-plus percent decrease last week), WWE was still able to keep their number four spot in the Cable Top 150 Rankings for the 18-49 demographic. This week that remains the same, with RAW’s 9PM hour coming in sixth and 10PM hour at 8th. Here is this week’s top five:

1. College Football/NC State vs. Texas A&M – ESPN – 1.38
2. College Football/Missouri vs. Oklahoma State – ESPN – 0.94
3. SportsCenter (11PM) – ESPN – 0.72
4. Monday Night RAW (8PM) – USA Network – 0.61
5. College Football/Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech – ESPN – 0.60

EA’s Take: There’s really not a lot to take out of the last couple of weeks because of the holidays. I think if you champion SmackDown Live over RAW, you’ll see last week as a victory without letting silly little things like facts get in the way. I’ve been talking about things turning around for RAW once we hit the New Year and I don’t expect that to be any different. Just look at how much WWE loaded onto next week’s show. Not to mention, Monday Night Football is finished. Anticipate RAW quickly taking back number one in the Cable Top 150 on a weekly basis.