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According to new information, some colossal changes may be coming to WWE Raw, but not for some time. The wrestling program first moved from TV-PG to a TV-14 rating back in the year 1997. However, over a decade ago, in July 2008 the television program made the leap to change its rating from TV-14 to TV-PG once again.
It was recently reported in a since-deleted tweet from Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men podcast that WWE Raw is making the executive decision to shift its TV-PG rating to TV-14 as soon as the following Monday. Sharing the news via Twitter Zarian wrote, “Starting July 18th WWE Raw will have a TV-14 rating moving forward on the USA Network," Continuing on, he added, “The PG Era is over."
However, Zarian later clarified that this information was written in a memo that was sent out prematurely, and that the move had not been finalized. In an earlier tweet, he noted that this could still be a change coming at a later date. According to the TV Parental Guidelines, TV-14 programs fall under the following criteria, ”contains some material that many parents would find unsuitable for children under 14 years of age.” On the other hand, TV-PG programs are said to “contain material that parents may find unsuitable for younger children." Although the changes seem slight, on screen they could be major.
A proposed shift in the rating of WWE Raw may seem minuscule, considering it's only moving one step up the ladder, however, the program could find itself actually depicting major shifts. For example, the violence depicted could illustrate a lot more blood than it has in the past decade, causing its demographic to change a lot. WWE programs typically target younger children, but if the violence intensifies parents might refrain from allowing their children to indulge in the program, causing WWE Raw’s viewership to shift with its shiny new rating.
Nonetheless, a decision to change the rating of WWE Raw would a bold one, but it's one the company has done in the past. That being said, potentially switching things up could definitely bring some new life and fire back to the franchise and might just work in WWE Raw’s favor as it allows for the program to reach a much larger audience.
Source: Andrew Zarian|Twitter, 2
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