Image: WWE
The winner of Men’s Royal Rumble Edge, who appeared on WWE television for the third time this week, didn’t seem to mean anything to Friday night viewers of SmackDown. The episode had an average of 2.126 million viewers among the Fast Nationals, 4.6 percent less than last week’s number of nights on the Royal Rumble show.
SmackDown viewership was consistent throughout the show, dropping 1.7 percent from the first to the second hour. The episode averaged 2.144 million viewers in hour one and 2,108 million viewers in hour two.
Fox finished last of the major networks in terms of total viewership, with NBC’s average of 2.9 million viewers getting the closest. SmackDown achieved a score of 0.6 in the 18-49 demo, the same number overnight as in the past three weeks. SmackDown was the second of network programming in 18-49, finishing behind ABC’s Shark Tank.
The 18-34 demo was also the same as it was with a 0.3 rating. That was behind Shark Tank and tied for second place on the networks.
All major networks broadcast original first shows, so that was probably the reason for the lower viewership for SmackDown.
Year-on-year, SmackDown dropped 16.5 percent in viewership, 20 percent in 18-49 and 33.3 percent in 18-34.
Here’s a look at the last 10 weeks of nighttime viewership for SmackDown (note: the December 18 episode aired on FS1):
