Raw posts low ratings this week as WrestleMania approaches

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Dave Meltzer | @davemeltzerWON | Mar 21, 2017 4:42 pm

Last night's Raw broke the record for the lowest audience to watch the show since 1997 on a night when they weren't facing major sports competition or it being a major holiday, with 3.04 million viewers.

The previous record low outside of shows during football season, or going against either the NBA playoffs or the Olympics, or on a major holiday, was 3.07 million viewers for the February 13th show.

What's bad is that leading up to WrestleMania, and before the NBA playoffs, ratings are often at their highest marks of the year. Still, part of this was the state of television, as Raw was second to the O'Reilly Factor on cable which did 3.56 million viewers.

Dancing with the Stars can't be seen as the reason because there was a big third hour drop, and that's after Dancing with the Stars ended. Interestingly, this was an audience that declined throughout the show, as opposed to the late arriving audience which is usually the case this time of year.

In particular, women tuned out heavily in the third hour. The show was built around a Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman main event, promoted for the entire week. Undertaker appeared at the end of the show, but was not advertised. Brock Lesnar was there, but only appeared in a dark segment.

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 3.16 million viewers
9 p.m. 3.12 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.87 million viewers