Raw's September 2012 Ratings

The final Raw of this month is already in the books and the ratings are out. I read that it was a 2.72. Yes, that is down there for lowest of the year. Memorial Day's episode a few months ago also did poorly, but that was to be expected.

Look at the numbers for Raw throughout this month: 2.83 for the first week, 2.89 for the second, 2.86 for the third, and I already mentioned the most recent episode. Not one episode has gotten to a 3.0. This happened in December 2011, less than 12 months ago. Not one episode of Raw got to a 3.0 in that month, either. Back then, you at least had a few numbers get to a 2.9. This month has been horrible for Raw's ratings.

What do you blame? Football? Of course. What about the extremely horrible rating this week? There was some controversy in the Packers/Seahawks game on Monday, which is definitely being talked about all around the nation, even by politicians, but the big play that caused the uproar happened long after Raw ended. You can't say that everyone tuned away from Raw to see how the officials would handle that call. And yet, that game did draw a large audience. You also had other top TV shows having big nights, which obviously hurt Raw. I don't feel Raw really had any big draws to compete with all that. Had the controversial call in that football game came at 11:00 PM EST, that would have sapped away viewers from Raw's final segment. I watched that football game on TV. I know I watched it all the way to the end, even for the meaningless extra point after the Seahawks "won" the game. It was definitely interesting.

Let me switch gears and talk about football. Have faith, I'll go back to wrestling. I was never a fan of it when I was a younger, but I watch it very often now. It seems like almost every game I see features some new play, new way to botch a play, and some other drama that is new. That is the way pro wrestling should still be able to be. You could understand why the WWE might want to take ideas from the NFL and try to act like it can compete with something like that. But who cares if the WWE has more Twitter followers than the NFL? The wrestling product just cannot compete right now at all. What I see playing out in these football games is so interesting, I can definitely find myself relating it back to things going on in the WWE. I think it can definitely provide me with new ways to articulate the things I usually talk about, especially with the diva division. Maybe I will give that a try one day, maybe not.