WWE RAW has been a staple of WWE’s programming since its debut in 1993. The three-hour format was adopted on July 23, 2012, to provide more content and showcase a broader range of talent.
Last month, WWE announced that Monday Night RAW will transition from its long-standing three-hour format to a two-hour broadcast starting this Monday. The show is currently broadcast on USA Network and is set to move to Netflix in January.
During the WWE Bad Blood post-show press conference, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque was asked about WWE RAW moving back to two hours.
“RAW goes down to two hours. What does that do for us? Hour less show. We found ourselves in this wild spot. If you had asked me a few years ago, three hours was just—the difference between two and three is like night and day. I can’t even express to you how much different that is. Now we are at this place where we are doing three-hour shows, and it will drop to two. It’s a different way of looking at it that’s just different. It’s a little bit of stress. It’s less, but I think sometimes less is more. I think that’s going to be a really good thing. When we get to Netflix, we are still working through all of that. I think the truth is, you guys will have to watch and see.
I will wait and see, but we will deal with it. The truth is, no matter what the length of time is, it’s about putting out the best product we can, telling the best possible stories we can. At the end of the day, this is what it’s all about—telling stories. Sometimes in our business, we get so caught up into our ‘two-hour, three-hour, one-hour.’ The movie is the movie. When the movie is over, it was either good or it was not good, or too long or too short, whatever it is. But we are just making a movie every week, twice a week—actually three times a week—with more to come. We approach it in that manner. Let’s write the best stories and then figure out how to jam it into whatever timeslot we have available.”