6 Ways Vince McMahon Can (Realistically) Save WWE Raw's Ratings

It's no secret that WWE currently find themselves in a complete malaise, with each passing month forcing industry journalists to recycle material to the effect of 'lowest Raw rating ever outside holiday season' - sometimes more than once.

That was the case just last week, as the company's flagship show once more sunk to its worst viewership figure in the modern era, attracting a relatively paltry 2.13 million viewers for the 10 June episode.

To put it bluntly, the continuous decline is an absolute disaster for WWE, who now more than ever owe their income to overblown television deals - deals predicated on consistent ratings. Ratings that if they don't fix, could one day see the main tranche of their funding cut off completely.

We've pondered all the company's problems ad nauseum in dozens of columns before this one, and many of the solutions are well-worn ground. Unfortunately, many of them require wholesale change to the fundamentals of WWE's business. Raw isn't going to be reduced to two hours. PG isn't going away - as if that would solve anything. And Vince McMahon isn't going to vacate his shoes for anybody - not even his son-in-law.

Just because WWE won't or can't take the steps that are really needed to arrest their slump, doesn't mean they are helpless. There are a number of realistic, practical and above all else obvious adjustments they can make right away that might just persuade at least some of their lapsed viewers to tune back in.

What unsnapped pencils remained in the boardroom of WWE's Stamford, CT headquarters met their maker on the morning of 30 April, when TV's what's hot/what's not dropped in staffers' in-trays. Was the previous night's episode of Raw hot?

It was not.

Suffering yet another ratings nadir, Vince McMahon once more instigated drastic change, as the USA Network apparently demanded improvement - and fast. His solution, blighted by typical reactionary myopia, was the introduction of the so-called Wild Card rule, which would allow talent from SmackDown to migrate to Raw, and vice-versa.

Theoretically, this'd create an element of the unexpected on Monday nights, offering the potential for anybody to show up. Must see television, right?

Not quite. The problems are two-fold. For one, anyone worth seeing who couldn't previously be spotted on Raw would inevitably have been on SmackDown the next day anyway. Secondly, the rule has only exacerbated the company's major problem of overexposure, merely diluting the value of the blue brand stars rather than raising the intrigue of the red brand.

The proof is in the pudding, and in this case, the pudding is the complete stasis of the ratings needle. Raw's numbers have not improved one single point since the 'Wild Card' rule commenced. It is, in a word, sh*t, and the sooner it's gone, the better.