Did The Hype Around Cody Rhodes’ Injury Drive Up WWE Raw Viewership?
Cody Rhodes' prominence on "WWE Raw" is becoming more and more undeniable as "The American Nightmare" seemingly helped the 6/6 episode reach its second-highest viewership since WrestleMania 38.
Wrestlenomics released its ratings report for last night's "Raw" and noted that last night's show had 1,872,000 viewers on average, the highest total viewership since the 4/4 post-WrestleMania edition. This week's show saw a 25% boost from last week's Memorial Day episode. According to Showbuzz Daily, hour one, which included Rhodes' promo, had a total viewership of 1,948,000, the third-highest hour of total viewership behind hour one and hour two of the 4/4 "Raw."
As far as the 18-49 demographic is concerned, "Raw" saw its highest number since April 11 as it accrued an average viewership of 674,000 (0.52 rating). It ranked second overall in cable originals.
Last night's "Raw" went up against the NHL Conference Finals of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a series that has the struggling Edmonton Oilers facing the Colorado Avalanche. That game secured the number one spot for the evening.
A year ago, the 6/7 episode of "Raw" had a total average viewership of 1,640,000 which makes a 232,000 increase from last year.
"Raw" had a lot of hype coming out of Sunday's Hell In A Cell premiere live event on Peacock. It opened with a Cody Rhodes promo and confrontation with Seth Rollins that seemingly wrote him off television following his gruesome pectoral injury. The show also featured a new member being introduced to The Judgment Day, Finn Balor, who turned heel to kick out the faction's current leader, Edge.
In other rating news, the newest season of "Miz & Mrs." appeared on the USA Network following "Raw" with two new episodes. Episode one roped in an average of 643,000 viewers while episode two saw a drop to 443,000. Regarding the key demographic, episode one averaged 274,000 for the 18-49 demo (0.21 P18-49 rating) while episode two averaged 196,000 (0.15 P18-49 rating). The total viewership had it rank #14 overall in cable originals and #25 for the key demo.