realistic

The ratings on 12/17, the third lowest rated Raw of the year, told a few lessons. The first one is, very clearly, after a disappointment with the Smackdown number, is that people don't want Steve Austin in car chases and comedic on location brawls. The second is, you don't create a champion by handing a belt to someone you've portrayed as upper mid card for years without a lot of work establishing him as a serious main eventer.

Raw fell to a 3.99 rating (3.98 first hour; 4.00 second hour), or approximately 5.03 million viewers. Only the 10/22 show, which did a 3.92, and the 11/5 show, at 3.95, drew a worse number in the regular time slot of a non-holiday show dating back to 1998.

The bad news was twofold. First, the show opened strong, showing it was the show itself and not the initial interest level or the football game (which did an above average 12.9 for the New Orleans Saints vs. St. Louis Rams) or Everybody Loves Raymond (which did its usually strong 14.2) to blame. The usually growing early audience grew well with the Austin-McMahon interview leading to the second straight Austin chasing Booker around time while Vince monitors with his magic cell phone. It appeared that by the time Booker and Austin were in the bingo hall, the show was dead. The usual big pick-up at 10 p.m., usually because they slot one of the big stars there, didn't materialize probably because Rock's opponent was Storm, who they had destroyed in booking, as the segment only did a 4.2, still a pick-up of about 375,000 viewers. An interview with Flair and Jericho, which was sold as being the Jericho vs. Van Dam title match, fell to a 4.1, which was not a good sign for any of those three. The next segment, with Angle & Test vs. Rikishi & Edge plus Palumbo & Gunn vs. Show & Tajiri lost about 375,000 viewers, which probably could have been predicted considering the latter match. What was a terrible sign is that they gained no appreciable viewers for the climax of the show-long angle with Austin and Booker in church, an anemic 3.8 rating for a bad series of skits with an equally anemic ending.

While the Jericho vs. Van Dam title match, spruced up by putting Flair as ref and Vince at ringside as an announcer, did pick up about 630,000 viewers, the start point was so low that the 4.3 rating ended up as the lowest rated main event match of the year.

Smackdown delivered a 3.60 rating (4.14 realistic rating) and six share on 12/13, a number inexplicably low for a variety of reasons. First off, the show has done consecutive 4.2's. It should be noted that the 3.6 rating Smackdown delivered equalled roughly 6.1 million viewers, which is slightly more viewers than the 4.67 rating of three days earlier on TNN, so even with such an apparently wide gap between the ratings of the two shows, Smackdown is still the most watched show of the week. Second, it was coming off an inexplicably high Raw rating three days earlier. Third, the rating in the top 53 metered markets was a 5.0, which would indicate a national number in the 4.3 to 4.4 range. The show still finished fourth out of six networks, and for the first time in a few weeks, the main event on Smackdown (RVD & Rock vs. Undertaker & Jericho) tied Temptation Island, both at 4.1. Smackdown did grow throughout the show, unlike the previous weeks where the rating peaked early in the second hour and dropped for the main event. Top competition on the night were Friends (14.9), Will & Grace (11.8 and 12.5), Just Shoot Me (11.4) and Survivor (10.7). The low rating also makes little sense with the competition on CBS in the second hour much easier.