During recent WWE conference calls, Vince McMahon and WWE have been adamant that the drop in ratings for their programming has been an overreaction. They have also stated that the drop in ratings has been even with or less than the average drop for the USA Network and the cable industry as a whole. The company’s own Key Performance Indicators have debunks this, as the below slide was posted with the Q1 financials this morning…
RAW ratings are down 12% from last year, while SmackDown is down 5% (they aired on SyFy last year). The USA Network is currently down 9% from this time last year, while the top 25 cable networks on average are suffering a 7% loss. While the SmackDown loss doesn’t look that bad, Raw’s 12% loss (360,000 viewers) during WrestleMania season can’t be looked at as a positive.
