Raw Viewership Down From Week Before, Smackdown’s Increases

With no big event for Raw until January, Raw's numbers took a hit this week.

Showbuzz Daily reports that for the first time in a few weeks, Raw was under 3 million viewers this week, scoring  2,759,000 viewers, down from November 20th's 3,074,000 million viewers. Despite the lower numbers, Raw nabbed third, fifth and six place for the night in the 18-49 demographic, with Love and Hip Hop and the NFL ahead of it.

Numbers are as follows:  

Hour 1: 2,956,000 viewers (0.94 18-49)

Hour 2: 2,720,000 viewers (0.89)

Hour 3: 2,601,000 viewers (0.89)

Raw this week focused on a few things. The main event had Finn Balor being destroyed by Kane until Braun Strowman, who was attacked in the throat last week by Kane, come back magically healed and attacked Kane in the throat area, sending him reeling and out of the crowd.

Roman Reigns started an open challenge for the Intercontinental title. Elias took the challenge first, and failed to win the title. Samoa Joe jumped Reigns after the match, indicating that this may be the next match for the title.

Paige's group, Absolution, continued to wreak havoc in the women's division, laying out Sasha Banks and taunting Asuka.

On the Smackdown Live side of things, they jumped to 2.680 million viewers, up from 2.662 million. The show was highlighted by a Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton No DQ match, Jinder Mahal turning on the Singh. Bros and Mojo Rawley turning on Zack Ryder.

Smackdown landed at number 6 on this week's cable rankings, behind Oak Island, Fixer Upper, Tucker Carlson, Rachel Maddow and Hannity. It ranked number three among all non-political shows and hit number one in the 18-49 demographic.

For more coverage, be sure to check out our live results, as well as our post-show podcast.