WWE SmackDown Viewership Down For Season Premiere
Last night’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown was the show’s “season premiere,” a term used by the company to denote the show taking place after the WWE Draft. Despite the special episode, though, viewership for the episode reached its lowest point for the month.
According to new information from Showbuzz Daily, SmackDown’s latest episode averaged just 1.987 million viewers in overnight ratings. Those are lows for the show, although it is important to note that the episode was once again competing with playoff sports, as both MLB League Championship Series games were airing against the show. Over the first hour of the show, SmackDown averaged 1.978 million fans, with the second hour climbing up to 1.995 million.
In the 18-34 demographic, SmackDown had the worst ratings it’s ever had on Fox, landing just a 0.2 rating for the night. In the 18-49 demographic, SmackDown also dropped 16.7% from last week, averaging just a 0.5 rating. Thankfully, these numbers weren’t awful for among networks, as SmackDown still finished first and second among networks in both demographics. With the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view coming up, it’ll be interesting to see if WWE can improve upon its ratings, although next week’s show being on FS1 may hurt it a bit.