WWE’s television viewership has been falling for several years now. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started in March, numbers have been dropping at a rapid rate.
WWE Monday Night Raw, the flagship show of the company, has done record lows during this time period. Just last Monday, the show did its lowest rating in the 18-49 demographic.
Friday Night SmackDown on FOX has also seen a decrease from where it started back in October.
WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon addressed WWE’s decline in television viewership during WWE’s annual shareholder meeting that took place earlier this month.
“We have a 30-plus year track record of creating compelling characters and engaging a variety of audiences, and we obviously remain confident we can continue that with our collective ability, even in the most challenging environments with no live audience. The media ecosystem obviously has changed. We change with it. Our engagement metrics across platforms are understandably and obviously — however, the importance of linear programming is paramount in all of our businesses — we consistently have seen year-over-year increases in a variety of digital metrics and engagement. And positive trends have continued, even during COVID.
Conversely, TV viewership trends have been negatively impacted by COVID, obviously, and the lack of a live audience. We are still nonetheless the number-one television show on USA [Network] and consistently the number-one broadcast show on Fridays among key demos.
We expect a combination of valuable promotional inventory from our TV partners with the return of sports events programming. And a deep roster of charismatic talent will have a positive impact on viewership over the long-term.”
You can listen to the entire clip by clicking on the player below:
WWE CEO Vince McMahon responds to a shareholder question about what the company will do to improve TV ratings, from the annual shareholder meeting on Jul 16.
"We have a 30-plus year track record of creating compelling characters and engaging a variety of audiences…" pic.twitter.com/XV9EjFgyeG
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) July 26, 2020
H/T to WrestleNomics.com for the transcript
