Last week’s episode of WWE Raw was over three hours while this week’s episode was a little over two and a half hours. PWInsider reports that this is a case of WWE deciding when they want to go off the air, so they time their show accordingly.
WWE no longer has a “hard out” like they had on USA Network where they had to end shows at a certain time. However, that doesn’t mean the company will be pushing shows with endless amounts of time each week.
It’s being said that once WWE decides on a runtime for the show internally, and they are running over time, they will do whatever it takes to get the show back into a manageable timeframe so that the show can end when they want it to. Triple H isn’t just going to decide to go longer just because there’s more flexibility on Netflix.
Penta’s segment on Raw went long, but the show was timed to go off the air at 10:30 PM, so that’s why time was cut after Penta’s segment. WWE wanted to be done early enough on the west coast to allow talent and staff to take their red eye flights home. The company also didn’t want to accrue overtime charges with the venue, the local crew that was rented, or their own crew.
WWE isn’t looking to make Raw a five hour show just because they can, and the expectation is that the company will still be sticking to an internal run clock for when they want the show to end.
