Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Viewership Losses in the 3rd Hour of Raw

Viewership for RAW by Hour (9/1/2014 through 6/6/2016)




The next question is whether we can correlate who was in that last hour of Raw with when the largest viewership declines occurred. Obviously, this is not a perfect process. There are numerous events on television that are starting and ending through Raw which may impact the show's viewership from week-to-week and season-to-season. Furthermore, sometimes Raw viewership will spike for a certain segment (such as Shane McMahon's return) and decline after the hot moment has passed. Lastly, this analysis is looking at who was in the last two wrestling matches on Raw each week. It doesn't look at the final go-home segments (often promos). It doesn't look at who interfered in the match. It doesn't look at what was the promoted match or storyline of the show. It's an imperfect study and without having access to quarter-hour ratings, it's a very broad brushstroke to attempt to estimate a rather delicate topic. However, whilst disclaimers abound, Mookie ventures forth.

Methodology: divide out who was in the last two matches on Raw each week and correspond that with the viewership change in Hour 3 (versus Hour 2).

Average Hour Three Loss (9/1/14 to 6/6/16): -197,700 viewers. (This does not include the Blizzard Raw replay on 1/26/15.)


A low Index in this scenario is GOOD. (Note: Vince McMahon was included on here for his guest referee duties.)

Here is the overall rankings for people with 4+ matches in this dataset:

4+ MATCHES (FINAL + PENULTIMATE) ON RAW

PERSON OVERALL AVG LOSS INDEX
1 R-Truth 4       (368,500)        1.86
2 Tyler Breeze 5       (326,200)        1.65
3 Sasha Banks 7       (316,000)        1.60
4 AJ Styles 4       (310,000)        1.57
5 Titus O'Neil 7       (296,000)        1.50
6 D-Von Dudley 7       (294,143)        1.49
7 Mark Henry 4       (258,750)        1.31
8 Big E 21       (253,048)        1.28
9 Darren Young 5       (250,800)        1.27
10 Bubba Ray Dudley 7       (250,000)        1.26
11 Jey Uso 12       (249,917)        1.26
12 Cesaro 11       (249,364)        1.26
13 The Miz 12       (245,583)        1.24
14 Naomi 10       (244,500)        1.24
15 Kane 13       (228,462)        1.16
16 Bray Wyatt 8       (222,625)        1.13
17 Kofi Kingston 17       (219,353)        1.11
18 Becky Lynch 10       (209,500)        1.06
19 The Big Show 10       (203,200)        1.03
20 Kevin Owens 15       (199,067)        1.01
21 Dean Ambrose 25       (198,600)        1.00
22 Ryback 12       (192,083)        0.97
23 Sin Cara 6       (190,000)        0.96
24 Damien Sandow 6       (185,667)        0.94
25 Neville 10       (185,000)        0.94
26 Randy Orton 19       (184,737)        0.93
27 Xavier Woods 8       (180,375)        0.91
28 Rusev 12       (178,250)        0.90
29 Seth Rollins 31       (176,065)        0.89
30 Fernando 5       (176,000)        0.89
31 Daniel Bryan 7       (174,286)        0.88
32 Jimmy Uso 12       (174,250)        0.88
33 John Cena 22       (170,364)        0.86
34 Nikki Bella 9       (169,667)        0.86
35 Paige 8       (166,500)        0.84
36 Kalisto 8       (163,750)        0.83
37 Luke Harper 8       (163,500)        0.83
38 Braun Strowman 5       (160,600)        0.81
39 Roman Reigns 31       (159,452)        0.81
40 Sheamus 16       (152,625)        0.77
41 Dolph Ziggler 20       (152,000)        0.77
42 Adam Rose 7       (150,000)        0.76
43 Chris Jericho 4       (146,750)        0.74
44 Stardust 9       (143,111)        0.72
45 Diego 4       (140,000)        0.71
46 Natalya 4       (131,500)        0.67
47 Konnor 6       (131,000)        0.66
48 Alberto Del Rio 12       (124,167)        0.63
49 Viktor 7       (122,857)        0.62
50 Curtis Axel 4       (122,250)        0.62
51 Alicia Fox 4       (122,000)        0.62
52 Brie Bella 11       (120,091)        0.61
53 Bad News Barrett 6       (106,333)        0.54
54 Tyson Kidd 5       (100,000)        0.51
55 Charlotte 4         (86,500)        0.44
If you want to only look at people with 10+ matches here is the ranked list:

10+ MATCHES (FINAL + PENULTIMATE) ON RAW

PERSON OVERALL AVG LOSS INDEX
Big E 21        (253,048)        1.28
Jey Uso 12        (249,917)        1.26
Cesaro 11        (249,364)        1.26
The Miz 12        (245,583)        1.24
Naomi 10        (244,500)        1.24
Kane 13        (228,462)        1.16
Kofi Kingston 17        (219,353)        1.11
Becky Lynch 10        (209,500)        1.06
The Big Show 10        (203,200)        1.03
Kevin Owens 15        (199,067)        1.01
Dean Ambrose 25        (198,600)        1.00
Ryback 12        (192,083)        0.97
Neville 10        (185,000)        0.94
Randy Orton 19        (184,737)        0.93
Rusev 12        (178,250)        0.90
Seth Rollins 31        (176,065)        0.89
Jimmy Uso 12        (174,250)        0.88
John Cena 22        (170,364)        0.86
Roman Reigns 31        (159,452)        0.81
Sheamus 16        (152,625)        0.77
Dolph Ziggler 20        (152,000)        0.77
Alberto Del Rio 12        (124,167)        0.63
Brie Bella 11        (120,091)        0.61

If you want to only look at people who were in the final match (i.e. the main event of Raw, though it's not always really positioned that way):

4+ MATCHES (FINAL) ON RAW

final avg loss index
Titus O'Neil 4  (357,000)    180.62
AJ Styles 4  (310,000)    156.84
Big E 14  (288,786)    146.11
Kofi Kingston 12  (285,500)    144.45
Ryback 6  (238,333)    120.58
Rusev 6  (229,000)    115.86
Cesaro 6  (227,500)    115.10
Bray Wyatt 8  (222,625)    112.63
The Big Show 8  (218,000)    110.29
Kane 11  (215,455)    109.01
Kevin Owens 10  (208,700)    105.59
Jey Uso 6  (207,667)    105.07
Jimmy Uso 6  (207,667)    105.07
Xavier Woods 7  (204,286)    103.36
Randy Orton 18  (200,000)    101.19
Dean Ambrose 20  (196,850)      99.59
Seth Rollins 29  (186,828)      94.52
John Cena 21  (185,143)      93.67
Roman Reigns 29  (180,448)      91.30
Neville 6  (173,333)      87.70
Sheamus 11  (170,455)      86.24
Daniel Bryan 6  (168,333)      85.17
Braun Strowman 5  (160,600)      81.25
Chris Jericho 4  (146,750)      74.25
Alberto Del Rio 10  (143,800)      72.75
Dolph Ziggler 10  (136,600)      69.11
Luke Harper 4  (132,000)      66.78
Stardust 6  (117,000)      59.19
Viktor 4    (91,500)      46.29
Konnor 4    (91,500)      46.29


10+ MATCHES (FINAL) ON RAW

final avg loss index
Big E 14  (288,786)    146.11
Kofi Kingston 12  (285,500)    144.45
Kane 11  (215,455)    109.01
Kevin Owens 10  (208,700)    105.59
Randy Orton 18  (200,000)    101.19
Dean Ambrose 20  (196,850)      99.59
Seth Rollins 29  (186,828)      94.52
John Cena 21  (185,143)      93.67
Roman Reigns 29  (180,448)      91.30
Sheamus 11  (170,455)      86.24
Alberto Del Rio 10  (143,800)      72.75
Dolph Ziggler 10  (136,600)      69.11

It shows that people like Randy Orton, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, John Cena, Roman Reigns are near the middle of the pack while New Day has done poorly and Sheamus/ADR/Ziggler have done surprisingly well (in albeit fewer appearances).


Analysis by Chris Harrington @mookieghana (chris.harrington@gmail.com)