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    WWE Monday Night RAW — Facts
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    1993 — ...

    Production

    Raws original set featured red, white, and blue ring-ropes, a blue ring-apron, blue steps, and a small stage made of neon tubes. Since March 10, 1997, broadcasts of Raw were split into two hours and given hourly names for television ratings purposes, with the first hour being referred to as Raw Is War and the second as War Zone in television listings, and by the show's on-screen graphics beginning with the June 9, 1997 episode. War Zone opened with simply the Raw intro repeated, punctuated with the War Zone logo, until the November 24, 1997 broadcast when it finally debuted its own distinct opening video, albeit simply a remixed Raw opening video. In 1995, the entrance way was changed to feature "Raw" in giant letters.

    In 1997, WWF changed to red ring-ropes for Raw as well as Raw Is War being written along the ring due to their rivalry with WCW. They also updated the stage to feature a 70 foot tall large screen video wall known as the "TitanTron", which consisted a projection screen with several metal stage trusses and a video projector. The set also initially featured curtains on each side with truss beams and lighting later bearing the "WWF Attitude" banner on the sides. By 1999, the WWF added the "WWF.com: 'Download This!'" logo on the bottom of the TitanTron and added two vertical sides on the stage.

    With Raw moving to TNN from USA beginning with the September 25, 2000 episode, the TNN network logo was added on top of the TitanTron on the December 11, 2000 episode. The Chyron graphics were added to the bottom from the July 2, 2001 episode.

    Beginning October 1, 2001, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, the first hour was referred to as Raw instead of Raw Is War and the second hour changed from the War Zone to the Raw Zone by the show's on-screen graphics; however, announcers would generally refer to the entire two-hour block as Raw on-air. Raw updated to a new, industrial-inspired, parallelogram-shaped TitanTron in 2002. When the War ended, they began advertising their website on the ring aprons instead. They occasionally used black ropes. Like the previous set, the TNN logo was relocated to the bottom side of the TitanTron which was then replaced by the Spike TV logo on August 11, 2003 upon network relaunch. During the July 25, 2005 broadcast of Raw in Cleveland, Ohio, a special stage design was built for the John Cena-Chris Jericho Battle of the Bands concert.

    The 2002 set was designed by Production Designer Jason Robinson and it is larger than the previous TitanTron with the dimensions of 55 foot wide by 25 foot tall weighing about 4,000 lbs. and requires 3 18,000 watt projector screens to power the TitanTron.

    On October 3, 2005, as Raw returned to USA Network, the 2002 set was retained but the beams and lighting on the sides were modified. The Spike TV logo was removed from the bottom side of the TitanTron. No changes to the Raw set beyond October 9, 2006 when it unveiled the new logo and opening intro featuring "...To Be Loved" by Papa Roach as its theme song and scenes from New York City, the birthplace of Raw, with the ending of the intro shows the rooftop of Madison Square Garden. However, the logo and intro was retained until November 9, 2009 even with the changeover to high-definition broadcast on January 21, 2008, replacing the previous set which the "Minitron" was destroyed by Triple H when Vince McMahon's face was shown.

    From November 16, 2009 to July 23, 2012, the theme song for the Raw brand was "Burn It to the Ground" by Nickelback. Prior to this, the theme song for Raw was "...To Be Loved" by Papa Roach, which had been used since October 9, 2006 and "Across The Nation" by The Union Underground which was used from April 1, 2002 to October 2, 2006. The rap outro of "Thorn In Your Eye" featuring Scott Ian of Anthrax was the theme song from March 31, 1997 to March 25, 2002.

    On May 17, 2012, WWE and USA Network announced that Raw would switch to a permanent three-hour format beginning with the 1,000th episode on July 23, 2012. Since then, all three hours of the broadcast have been known solely as Raw, though they are still considered three separate programs for Nielsen ratings purposes (as indicated by the on-screen copyright notice shown near the end of each hour). In 2008, Raw went HD debuting a new stage. In 2010, WWE retired the red ropes for Raw after thirteen years for an all white scheme, and in 2012 became standard for all WWE programming. In 2012, Raw updated their HD set.

    Starting in mid 2014, this set would also be featured in pay-per-views. From late September through the end of October 2012, the middle rope at all WWE programming was changed to pink due to WWE's alliance with the Susan G. Komen organization for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This was repeated in 2013, from late September to early November, and it was repeated in 2014 from 29 September. WWE is one of many organizations who provide financial contributions as well as getting customers and employees to support the cause.

    On August 18, 2014, Raw switched to a full 16:9 letterbox widescreen presentation, with a down-scaled version of the native HD feed on a 4:3 SD feed. In conjunction with this, Raw updated its graphics package, with the new WWE logo (first used with the WWE Network's launch in February) now on the lower-right corner of the screen, right next to the word, "Live". Also, the new WWE logo is seen on the ring's turnbuckle covers. The USA Network logo has also been moved to the lower-left hand corner of the screen. Also, Raws theme song ("The Night") was modified. On re-runs on the WWE Network and on delayed broadcasts for most international markets, Raw is edited without the word "LIVE" and the hashtag.

    On March 23, 2015, WWE added a small LED board to the left side of the ring on Raw. This LED board was also used at WrestleMania 31. The LED board since is now on an on/off basis, featuring in some weeks and not others. On the 1,000th episode of Raw, "The Night" by Kromestatik debuted as the theme for Raw while "Energy" by Shinedown served as the secondary theme-song until August 18, 2014, when it was replaced with "Denial" by We Are Harlot.

    On the September 14, 2015 season premiere of Raw, the middle rope was colored gold. Throughout the month of October 2015, the program partnered with Susan G. Komen for the Cure to promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with various stage elements being made pink. On the November 16, 2015, episode of Raw, WWE had a moment of silence for the victims of the terrorist attack in Paris, France, on November 13, 2015. Another moment of silence was held months later in June for the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting.

    On July 25, 2016, the ropes returned to red, the announce table moved back to the top of the stage for the first time since 2005, and a new HD set and graphics were debuted. The new set was almost identical to the set used for SummerSlam 2012 and 2013. It received some negativity after the newly dubbed "New Era" was using an older set. The set was revamped just four weeks later with a more elaborate and distinctive design. The new set featured the absence of a traditional TitanTron which had been custom since 1997. In its place was a curved LED banner with several rows of rectangle LED lights behind it. The new set also introduced LED floor panels on the entrance ramp along with LED ring posts. On the January 29, 2018 episode of Raw, new graphics and an updated logo were introduced, which lasted until September 23, 2019.

    On September 30, 2019 for its season premiere (and coinciding with the premiere of SmackDown on Fox later that week), Raw introduced a new set (including the reinstatement of pyrotechnics, which had been dropped in 2017 due to budget issues), updated logo (cropped with a chevron to make it resemble the corner of a ring), and new theme music ("Legendary" by Skillet). It was also revealed that both shows will now be staffed by separate writing teams.

    In September 2021, the ropes would turn white from red permanently which would also apply the same to SmackDown. Meaning all WWE programming except NXT UK use white ropes once again just like December 2012 – July 2016.

    On November 22, 2021, an updated version of the 2019 logo was introduced, alongside new graphics, and theme song.

    According to Eric Bischoff on the episode of WWE Confidential, the show utilizes 13 cameras at the cost of $85,000.

    Theme music

    Notes

    • Bold song titles denotes that the song is currently being used as the show's theme.

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