Raw on Monday, facing competition from both the NBA and NHL playoffs (including 12 million viewers for the Celtics-Heat game), held up well, doing similar numbers to last week.
The episode averaged 1.61 million viewers, the lowest number the show has done since football season ended, with a 0.52 rating in 18-49.
The Celtics-Heat game did a 4.24 in 18-49 and 3.79 in 18-34, which will be among the largest numbers anything on cable will do this year outside of the NFL.
Raw was fourth behind the game, the pregame show, and the post-game show. It was fourth in every key demo except women 12-34, where it was fifth, behind the Las Vegas vs. Dallas NHL game on ESPN that did 1.58 million viewers and a 0.44.
News numbers were way down against the NBA game and Raw was fourth for the night in total viewers, its best finish in that category in recent times.
Raw likely would have done substantially worse if not for the Night of Champions show giving it the post-PPV boost. The audience grew in the second hour and fell in the third, but it held up slightly better than usual for the Seth Rollins & AJ Styles tag match against Finn Balor & Damian Priest.
The show was down two percent in viewers from last week, but it faced much harder competition this time. Plus, Memorial Day has been historically low for Raw. It was also down two percent in 18-49.
As compared to Memorial Day last year, Raw was up eight percent in viewers and up 29 percent in 18-49 and 23 percent in 18-34. Factoring in homes lost by cable, the real percentage of homes with the station watching gains were 14 percent in viewers, 37 percent in 18-49, and 29 percent in 18-34.
Another key note is that women were stronger in hour three than hour one, but men declined significantly, with the women's 18-49 audience up 12 percent from the first to third hour while the men's audience was down 14 percent from the first-to-third hour.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 1.64 million viewers9 p.m. 1.70 million viewers10 p.m. 1.50 million viewers
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