The 66th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards was held on Monday, August 25th. Awards shows are often highly viewed special programs for whichever network they air on. The Emmys, like most award shows, is typically aired on a Sunday night. NBC -- which aired the program -- hit a bit of a snag this year with their preferred scheduling. In 2006, NBC acquired the rights to air the National Football Leagues Sunday Night Football broadcast. Since then, NBC has typically scheduled the Emmy Awards for the Sunday before Labor Day weekend, so as to avoid conflict with their NFL programming. However, this year, the MTV Video Music Awards aired on Sunday, August 24th. It was then decided by NBC to avoid going head-to-head with the VMAs and to instead air the Emmy broadcast on Monday. This was the first time since 1976 that Emmys were aired on a Monday instead of a Sunday. This schedule change by NBC presented a problem for WWEs Monday Night Raw. Primetime on Mondays is already a hotly contested night for major networks and cable outlets. This past Monday, Raw had to not only contest with their usual competition but also with the widely viewed Emmy Awards ceremony. This years Emmy telecast was the second-highest rated such broadcast in the past eight years. The awards show brought in 15.6 million total viewers throughout its airing. This substantial number obviously had an effect on WWEs flagship program, Raw. Despite the added competition, Raw didnt do too poorly. However, the show definitely suffered as a result. WWEs premier show drew a total of 3.97 million viewers for a Nielsen rating of 2.88. These numbers were down from last weeks episode, which had 4.19 million viewers and a 3.04 rating. Generally speaking, wrestling broadcasts have not been drawing the numbers that they once did. It was not uncommon for Raw to consistently garner a 4.0 or better rating during the height of the Attitude Era. While the 2.88 rating is not great, its understandable considering the stiff competition from the Emmy Awards. Furthermore, Nielsens new Twitter TV ratings system provided a bit of relief to WWE and their Raw program. The system measures the number of Twitter users who tweet about a specific program during its airing, as well as the total number of tweets about a given program. According to Nielsen, 1.365 million people tweeted during Monday Night Raw, while there were 7.852 million total tweets about the show. These numbers were again down from the previous week -- with 10.561 million tweets from 1.942 million people. Despite the drop in numbers, WWE Raw was ranked third among non-sporting events in the Twitter TV rankings. While WWE witnessed a drop in their viewers and rating for this weeks Raw, it had to have been expected as they faced off with NBCs Emmy Awards ceremony. WWE will likely rebound next week, but will continue to face added competition from the NFLs Monday Night Football program in the coming months.
Douglas Scarpa is a freelance writer, independent filmmaker, art school graduate, and pro wrestling aficionado -- all of which mean he is in financial ruin. He has no backup plan to speak of, yet maintains his abnormally high spirits. If he had only listened to the scorn of his childhood teachers, he wouldn't be in this situation.
