10 Most Significant Reasons For WWE Raw's Low Ratings

1. Nielsen Ratings Don't Take Into Account New Viewing Technologies

WWE presents Monday Night RAW as €˜the longest-running weekly episodic television show in history.€™ That implies that RAW has remained more or less unchanged since its inception, and WWE€™s figureheads act like prime time television is still the most popular visual entertainment medium among households. That might€™ve been the case during the Monday Night Wars, but not so in 2015. With the explosion of other viewing technologies, fans don€™t have to watch RAW exactly when it airs. They can watch it at their leisure, which discourages people from tuning in when it matters. The Nielsen rating is a relic of a period when TV was the only medium for watching regular programming. The ratings haven€™t taken into consideration the proliferation of other ways of watching TV. The WWE Network tends to replay major WWE events and PPVs, which can be accessed whenever the user chooses. Hulu Plus and other on-demand services provide similar opportunities for people outside of the United States. DVR technology allows people to record shows for future watching. Then of course, there are streaming sites for those who don€™t have access to any of the other options, and these sites likewise do not figure into Nielsen ratings. When you combine these different elements with the fact that people will always strive to find something that€™s free, you end up with fewer households watching RAW during its actual prime time airing. Maybe that should be a signal to Vince that he shouldn€™t be so focused on TV ratings anymore to begin with.