Monday’s live Day 1 go-home edition of WWE RAW drew an average of 1.592 million viewers on the USA Network, according to Nielsen via Showbuzz Daily. This is up 2.51% from last week’s 1.553 million viewers.
For this week’s show, the first hour drew 1.589 million viewers (last week’s hour 1 – 1.601 million), the second hour drew 1.656 million viewers (last week’s hour 2 – 1.599 million) and the final hour drew 1.532 million viewers (last week’s hour 3 – 1.460 million).
The final RAW of 2021 drew a 0.41 rating in the 18-49 key demographic. This is up 7.89% from last week’s 0.38 key demo rating.
RAW ranked #14 for the night in viewership on cable, behind the NFL on ESPN, Monday Night Kickoff on ESPN, Monday Night Post-game on ESPN, The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Special Report with Brett Baier, Sportscenter at midnight, Hannity, FOX News Primetime, Monday Night Countdown on ESPN, America’s Newsroom at 10am, America’s Newsroom at 9am, and FOX & Friends. This is up from last week’s #21 ranking for the night in viewership.
RAW ranked #6 for the night on the Cable Top 150, with the 0.41 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. This is up from last week’s #7 spot. The NFL Monday Night Football game between the Dolphins and the Saints on ESPN topped the Cable Top 150 with a 3.26 key demo rating. The game on the main ESPN channel also topped the night on cable in viewership with 12.307 million viewers.
Celebrity Wheel of Fortune on ABC drew an average of 3.626 million viewers on broadcast TV at 8pm, while The Neighborhood drew 3.584 million viewers on CBS, the NBC Movie Special drew 1.325 million viewers on NBC, 911 drew 1.862 million viewers on FOX, and CW’s Whose Line Is It Anyway? drew 651,000 viewers, all in the 8pm hour on broadcast TV. Celebrity Wheel of Fortune drew the best key demo rating of the night on network TV with a 0.42.
This week’s RAW drew the best audience since the December 6 episode. The key demo rating was the best for the month of December. This was a rare week where the key demo rating for the third hour was better than the first, although the audience for hour one was slightly higher. The show went up against Week 16 of Monday Night Football on ESPN. The game between the Dolphins and the Saints was watched by 12.307 million viewers on ESPN, plus several million viewers for the various pre and post-game shows. This week’s RAW viewership was up 2.51% from last week, while this week’s key demo rating was up 7.89% last week.
Monday’s RAW viewership was down 10% from the same week in 2020, while the 18-49 key demo rating was down 21.15% from the same week in 2020.
Regarding the 2021 totals, RAW drew a total of 91.337 million viewers over 52 episodes, for an average of 1.756 million viewers per episode. RAW averaged a 0.50 18-49 key demo rating in 2021. To compare, the average 2021 viewership is down 6.59% from the 1.880 million viewers per episode that RAW averaged in 2020, and down 27.37% from the 2.418 million viewers per episode that RAW averaged in 2019.
Monday’s RAW from the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit had several matches and segments advertised ahead of time – the go-home build for WWE Day 1, AJ Styles vs. Omos (which did not happen), WWE United States Champion Damian Priest defending against Dolph Ziggler, Austin Theory vs. Finn Balor, RAW Tag Team Champion Randy Orton vs. Otis, The Mysterios vs. The Street Profits in the finals of the RK-Bronament, plus The Miz and Maryse renewing their wedding vows in the ring, which was the main event show-closing segment.
