Has the move to 3 hours been a good one for Raw?
 

So, Raw has been at 3 hours for a fair amount of time now, has it proved a success? Is the show more enjoyable? Or is 3 hours just too long on a weekl-to-week basis?

Maybe better from a marketing standpoint to plug their products and advertisers constantly but bad for the fans. I can't watch 3 hours of raw, it is too much. They should have focused on creating a compelling two hour show before making it a three hour show. Although some of the more recent raws have been good but in my opinion not enough to warrant three hours

More enjoyable? Probably not. As enjoyable? Sure. There are plusses and minuses to the change - the biggest minus in my mind is that when the writers are not on their game, we end up with 30 recaps of what happened last hour. But when they are, we get The Shield, The Wyatt Family, Fandango - guys that previously wouldn't have been given enough airtime to get over.


So, to quote Nick Bakay - "Advantage: Push".

They can get a few more guys who normally wouldn’t get TV time on RAW with the extra hour if they choose to, but other than that, it’s pretty tiresome now.

They are giving matches more time, and as a result we've gotten a lot more awesome matches on a weekly basis. It has given more people opportunities to get on TV and storylines more time to get told. I enjoy RAW every week. There is always something I really like every week.

Another reason I don’t like 3 hour RAW: One more hour a week of bad jokes from The King.

It's tiring as a fan at home I can only imagine the toll it takes on the live audience and the writers, there are some weeks where I don't even bother just for the mere fact that its overlong and I'm not up to it.I mean hell there are times where Ive gone to sleep on the show that NEVER happened before this 3hr fiasco. I wonder if Vince believes there is a such thing as overkill and the time the show is given isn't spent wisely at all. We are subjected to much of the same lulling segments as before but now they are longer because they need to eat up time and because some sad bastard in the back thinks his jokes and skits are funny.

I'd say good move now but it wasn't originally.

Wrestling-wise, the early weeks felt like it was just dragging along with 3 hours but got a lot better once the WWE started to use the extra time towards tag wrestling. Could argue Team Hell No has benefited the most from the switch to 3 hours.

Think ratings-wise, its been around the same as the 2 hour shows so there isn't any real benefit or negative with the extra hour.

3 hour raw make me wish they dropped smackdown

I mean, personally, IMHO, it was great for celebrating the 1,000th episode but now it’s just getting so fucking repetitive that it feels like a grind to watch 3 hours of wrestling on a Monday night when there are other, higher-quality shows on for me to watch.

To clarify: we're talking about your personal enjoyment of the show, not a ratings/advertising/corporate perspective. :y:

since I record Raw and fast forward through stuff I don't care about it's been pretty good since there's more time for stuff I care about

I just watch the Hulu plus 90 minute version. 3 hours is too long and the roster is weak right now

I tend to have it on in the background while I do other stuff or watch it later and skip through most of it. I don't know if it's better or worse from an enjoyment standpoint. They haven't taken advantage of the third hour though.

*Dean Ambrose "Nope" meme*

Meh, I don't really enjoy it as much. It's too much and I just don't like sitting around for 3+ hours. How they got an extra hour and still manage to have an overrun every week still makes me laugh. Just don't care for the length.

9/10 I enjoy it just as much as the 2 hour shows, with the added exception that I know have at least three "high points" in the show to look forward to (at the top of each hour).

The 1/10 time though, I find it excruciating to sit through.

Since we're only talking about the creative and personal enjoyment perspective, no, I kind of miss the two hour RAWs, with a fixed roster. Yeah, there is more time for other stuff, but how much of that "other stuff" is Randy Orton, Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio or Big Show. Having a three-hour RAW has not changed the creative direction of the company at all.

Not a real complaint -- I enjoy WWE programming most weeks (this week's was great, as I liked the story of Champion vs. Champion running through the night), but I'd enjoy it more if it were more succinct.

Just watched DVRed Smackdown in an hour and skipped only commercials and seemingly inconsequential backstage segments/Reviews. Enjoyed it very much as opposed to the elongated, live RAW shows.

If they actually used the time to create more mid-card feuds instead of just random matches it could be great.

Sorry but they want the money frm this. So do cry in your kaval flakes

I watch Raw online the following day so I often find myself skipping through a match or two just to make the process less time consuming. You'd probably save half an hour on recaps alone.

I like the theory of the 3 hour show; more time for midcard fueds, more time for the Tag division, more time to expand on the Diva's division, etc. but they don't seem to have used it for that and we just get more of what we were already getting.

Pretty much the same feelings about it. By the time I've skipped through all the recaps it doesn't seem that long.

Since the raw after WrestleMania I've loved the move. The Shield and Team Hell No are really making the most out of the extra time. I love the longer matches that actually develop into something now. It feels like the WWE's really finding their groove with these 3 hour Raw's lately.

Nitro made it work, if they followed that approach I'd enjoy it a lot more but all the recaps are dire.

Since the switch to 3 hours I have become disinterested in wrestling. I don't know if the product or the longevity is at fault.

I preferred a 2 hour show w/ 3 hour shows being a treat (even though half of them were worse than usual).


I would love them to go back to 2 hours and then do a 3 hour RAW leading into a PPV and then maybe a month of 3 hour RAWs leading into Wrestlemania...like making it special for Wrestlemania season....

Yeah longer matches that give the likes of Daniel Bryan a chance to showcase awesomeness are totally a bad thing. We should go back to having just two hours and send Mr. Danielson back to 60 second matches every other week.

3 Hours Is Fine As long As They Keep It Entertaining. With That Said, They Have Been Struggling With The Entertaining Side Of Things.

I never watch it live. Only on DVR. So I love it.

No they didn't. A really long Warrior promo, and Nwo nitro cime to mind

Shut Up You Ignorant Ass!

really? I'm seeing numbers at 2.5 or below. I thought they were doing better than that previously.

Anyway, since this is about personal enjoyment, I'd say it's a break even sort of deal. What I've caught has been on par with previous shows. Maybe a slightly positive tilt, because more stuff means a better variety, but about the same.

Does That Capitalization Thing Always Happen?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Fuck ratings. At least until the show's in danger of being cancelled. Which it's not.

If rating continue to decline, the money they get will be grossly diminished. They're already expending more, making the profit line that much higher.

If they want the money, they'd be wise to try and keep people, you know, watching.

That would be cool.

I'd prefer if they went back to two hours and had both shows as separate rosters again, similar to 2002/2003 when Smackdown wasn't so obvious as the B show.

Good move. It's given guys who normally would be stuck on Superstars so tv time. Plus, Raw's been incredible lately plus we get more wrestling. I'm all for it.

Gave cruiserweights and midcard guys tv time week in week out, the first two hours were always fairly solid it was the main event stuff that got hit and miss.

I could sit and watch a 3 hour Nitro up until early 98 anytime and enjoy it even today.

Yeah, damn people for discussing points which are actually quantifiable in a genre where everyone discusses behind the scenes elements. Hang 'em.