The lack of NBA playoffs did not prove to be much of a benefit for Raw's ratings on Monday night as the show did 2.61 million viewers, identical to the previous week when going against the playoffs.
While Memorial Day and the NHL playoffs did hurt the number, anything below 2.85 million should have been considered a disappointment. Still, because the news stations weren't broadcasting key programming and the NHL was on NBC rather than cable, Raw was the most-watched show on cable, a spot it hasn't had in a long time.
The Stanley Cup finals did 4.85 million viewers.
Memorial Day traditionally hurts the rating by only 40,000 to 50,000 viewers, so it's a factor, but not nearly a factor to where it ties a record low. In theory, next week should be up the day after a Raw PPV, although the split crew PPVs have not been a boon to next-day ratings as it used to be.
The June 12th Raw, unless the return of Brock Lesnar is gigantic, should be the lowest rated Raw of the modern era outside of football season unless the NBA playoffs are a four-game sweep, since it goes on against game five.
The other key is Memorial Day traditionally means viewers come in later, so the second hour is always bigger than the first, but this show's second hour actually dropped.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 2.69 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.68 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.47 million viewers
Here's a chart from Paul Fontaine that looks at Raw ratings in 2017 and compares them to last year. The year-over-year declines in the last month have been the worst of the entire year:
