Clarification about the runtime of WWE RAW broadcasts on Netflix

The January 13th 2025 edition of WWE RAW, with a runtime of two hours and thirty minutes, was shorter than the Netflix premiere. Paul “Triple” Levesque previously stated that the length of RAW on Netflix was going to be “flexible” and he stated that a show between two and three hours was the “sweet spot” for him.

It was reported that Penta’s debut segment from this week “went way longer than he was initially planned to go“ which led to time being trimmed from other segments. Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com noted that even though WWE no longer has a “hard out” of having to be off the air by a certain time, the company still wants to maintain an “internal clock” of when they want RAW to end.

Johnson explained the process…

“If they internally time out a show to be over at a certain time and they are running over that time, they are going to do whatever they can to get it back into the manageable time frame they WANT the show to end at. For example, when they went off the air tonight, they still were holding several dark matches live in Sam Jose and wanted the taping to be over early enough on West Coast time to allow whatever talents and staff scheduled to take red-eye flights home the ability to do so. Netflix allows flexibility, but the company is still going to maintain their usual structure and timing. They aren’t seeking to be there five hours every week just ‘because they can that.'”