Tag: smackdown overnight ratings

Title match, Vince McMahon appearance boost WWE SmackDown overnight ratings

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Friday night’s WWE SmackDown averaged 2.272 million viewers in the fast national ratings. That’s up 26.1 percent from the overnight number of 1.802 million for the previous week. 

The previous week’s SmackDown ended up with a final average of 1.914 million viewers, so a similar increase would put this show in the 2.4-2.5 million range when final numbers are released on Monday. 

Last night’s show averaged a fast national viewership of 2.186 million viewers in the first hour and 2.362 million in the second.

It’s the highest overnight number for SmackDown since January 21, 2021. 

The show did a 0.55 fast national rating in the 18-49 demo, which led network television. That’s up 37.5 percent from the prior week’s 0.4 overnight number.

This is SmackDown’s best overnight rating in the key demo since May 7, 2021

SmackDown featured Roman Reigns’ first televised title defense as Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, along with a much-publicized appearance by Vince McMahon in the show’s opening segment. It was announced earlier in the day that McMahon was voluntarily stepping away from his CEO and chairman positions until the WWE Board of Directors’ misconduct investigation is completed.

Fast national viewership for WWE SmackDown & AEW Rampage

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Friday night’s wrestling war on cable saw WWE SmackDown average 793,000 viewers on FS1 and AEW Rampage on TNT average 549,000 viewers in the fast national ratings.

These are overnight numbers and should change when the final numbers are released on Monday.

SmackDown was a special “Supersized” episode of the show that was two-and-a-half hours long, airing from 8-10:30 p.m. Eastern time. The final half hour of the show went against the first half hour of Rampage.

The previous three times that SmackDown aired on FS1 in 2019 and 2020, the show averaged 933,000 viewers, but that was for its regular two-hour block from 8-10 p.m. Eastern.

Rampage’s number is up from the 502,000 viewers the show averaged last week. Rampage has averaged 642,000 viewers over the seven weeks following its first two episodes, so last night was down 14.5 percent from that average.

The 18-49 demo ratings are not known at this time. Based on the viewership, Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics estimated that SmackDown would be expected to draw around a 0.22 rating and Rampage would be expected to draw around a 0.19.

WWE SmackDown overnight ratings up slightly from last week

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Last night’s SmackDown on Fox averaged 1.83 million viewers in the fast nationals.

That’s up 1.7 percent from last week’s overnight viewership number. Last week’s final viewership ended up being 1.917 million viewers.

Last night’s SmackDown was headlined by Apollo Crews defending his Intercontinental title against Big E, Sami Zayn, and Kevin Owens in a fatal four-way match.

The overnight rating in the 18-49 demo was a 0.5, which is up 25 percent from last week’s overnight rating. The number is rounded to the nearest tenth, so the actual increase in that category may not be as much as it appears. The final numbers for last week saw the show do a 0.44 rating. This week could be as low as a 0.45, which would still round to 0.5 so more will be known early next week.

Year-over-year, SmackDown was down 10.3 percent in overnight viewership and down 16.7 percent in the 18-49 demo.

This is the first time since last August that SmackDown’s overnight viewership fell below 1.9 million viewers for two weeks in row.