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).

Dataset: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gqeXLFMHKlsx_7_Ik_4SYx8yLWJBB35EjO4JGSrOo4c/edit?usp=sharing

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