Why Have WWE Raw Ratings Dropped Recently and What Can Be Done to Fix It?

This past Monday we saw John Cena in two segments—the initial interview with Michael Cole and his match with Tensai followed by Cole later in the evening.

In the weeks leading up to that night, we had seen John Cena a lot less than we are used to. Whether it is his personal problems or WWE trying to give the spotlight to some other people, it might not be a good thing for ratings.

According to Inside Pulse via PW Torch, this past Monday saw Raw do a 2.92 rating with 4.28 million viewers, and the previous week they had done a very low 2.72 with 3.91 million viewers.

In case you wanted a point of reference, the 2012 average for Raw is 4.47 million viewers, so the drop is noticeable and would make anyone in WWE worry.

We have to wonder where this drop is coming from. Is it that we are entering summer, which means things like MLB will begin to take some of the viewers? Maybe it is just that WWE is losing viewers in general.

Another explanation is that John Cena being used less recently is hurting the ratings. We all know Cena is very popular with women and children, but is he popular enough to cause a drop in ratings?

It is hard to say why exactly someone did or did not tune in without polling every WWE fan who did not watch that week.

WWE is now in a new era, which means new stars are taking center stage. With Undertaker essentially being a "one match a year" wrestler and guys like Triple H focusing more on the business side of things, we are not seeing many wrestlers who debuted before 2000.

Kane, Mark Henry, Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho are the only full-time wrestlers in the company who have been major stars since before the turn of the century, and two of them are suspended while another is recovering from surgery.

With this new generation comes new forms of viewing wrestling content. It could be that television is simply a medium that is struggling to find the big audiences it saw in the '90s.

People use things like YouTube and WWE.com to watch specific matches and may not watch the entire show on TV at the same time it airs.

With factors like DVR viewership and more people choosing to watch on the Internet, we may be seeing a shift in what to expect for average viewers.

Also, people like The Rock and Brock Lesnar, who are huge magnets for viewers, have disappeared from TV without a trace.

Lesnar will be back at some point and so will The Rock, but until then, WWE has to find ways to pull viewers in.

They can no longer control when someone has to watch their product, so they have to provide enough incentive for us to want to watch when it is happening live.

Perhaps it is time to shift from cable to broadcast television. It is no secret that, traditionally, the broadcast networks churn out higher numbers than cable networks, simply because they are available to a wider audience than all the major cable and satellite providers can reach.

USA has been a great home to Raw for many years, and WWE probably wants to stay under the same management umbrella to make things easier.

This is where NBC comes in. The struggling broadcast channel is part of the NBC Universal family of networks, which is owned primarily by Comcast.

Moving Raw to NBC would probably help both WWE and NBC. WWE would be on one of the major broadcast networks, and NBC would have an established TV dynasty to help boost their overall ratings.

NBC has been the fourth-place network for quite some time, and in case you are not sure what that means, there are only four main broadcast networks.

The once powerful channel was the home to massive hits like Seinfeld and Friends, and while they still find a lot of success in hosting the Super Bowl and the Olympics, they are struggling to find what will push them over the other networks again.

WWE cannot do this by itself, but the long-standing Raw could help with regards to increasing overall viewership on the channel.

By moving the popular America's Got Talent to another night, NBC could free up the slot for Raw.

This is just one way WWE could possibly turn those low numbers around, and it is probably an unlikely move given that WWE is very loyal to the USA Network and cable in general.

What do you think WWE can do to increase their ratings?