According to Dave Meltzer on a recent edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, one main reason why the company created The WWE 24/7 Title is due to the continuous pressure from The USA Network. Officials from The USA Network have reportedly been complaining for some time now about Monday Night RAW’s continuous drop in ratings, particularly in the third hour. The USA Network has continually pushed WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon to try and fix the third hour of Monday Night RAW as The 10-11PM time-slot of the show was always the highest rated, until recent years.
The third hour of Monday Night RAW has been dropping so bad in ratings in recent weeks that WWE Officials recognized that they had to do something. WWE’s first action was when they created The Wild Card Rule which allowed top Superstars from SmackDown LIVE to appear on Monday Night RAW each and every week and vice versa as WWE Officials also wanted to make sure that when SmackDown LIVE moves to FOX in October it doesn’t become a secondary show and ratings won’t plummet down.
Officials from The USA Network have reportedly also been sending WWE all sorts of ideas as of late, in an attempt to bring up Monday Night RAW’s third hour numbers. One source close to the situation described the ideas as all terrible, but their best ideas was The 24/7 Title and Vince knew that he had to take one of them.
Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
