Interest coming out of the Survivor Series pay-per-view led to a boost in Raw ratings last night and the second highest number going against football this season.
Last night’s show from Toronto did 2.99 million viewers, second to only the 3.13 million viewers on the October 17th show for the return of Bill Goldberg.
Curiosity coming off the Goldberg vs. Lesnar finish was likely a big part, as Internet searches after the show were way above Survivor Series numbers of the past, with the topic most asked about being related to the main event.
Still, the audience remained strong in the second hour even after Goldberg did his one segment early. Perhaps fans expected Lesnar to be there since it was never said that he wouldn’t be, and they hoped there would be another confrontation. By the third hour, there was a big drop off.
The audience was up six percent from last week, which had been the second best number of the football season due to having all hands on deck and the promise of a Lesnar/Goldberg confrontation.
The NFL game with the Oakland Raiders vs. Houston Texans did 11.79 million viewers to easily win the cable race. Raw was fifth, also trailing The O’Reilly Factor (3.41 million), SportsCenter after football (3.25 million), and Tucker Carlson Tonight (3.07 million) on Fox News.
The three hours of Raw were:
8 p.m. 3.14 million viewers
9 p.m. 3.10 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.77 million viewers
Here’s a chart of the last 10 weeks of Raw ratings compared to previous years: