Tag: WWE on USA

WWE SmackDown viewership under one million viewers for third straight week

Posted on by Paul Fontaine

Image: WWE

Last Friday’s WWE SmackDown on USA averaged 943,000 viewers, down 2.6% from the previous week and the lowest audience for the show since Halloween of last year.

It’s also the third straight week the show has done under one million viewers which has never happened since the show’s inception.

The Friday, January 23 show averaged a 0.22 rating in the 18-49 demo, up 4.5% from the prior week but tying the third lowest rating the show has done since the Halloween episode. The episode topped the night’s cable charts in the key demo.

There was also more sports competition than usual. An NHL game aired head-to-head on ESPN and finished second on the cable charts with a 0.21 18-49 rating while college basketball on Fox also aired head-to-head and topped all television with a 0.37 average 18-49 rating.

As compared to the same week in 2025 when Nielsen was still using its previous reporting method, overall viewership was down 35.2% while the 18-49 rating was down 50%.

Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo ratings for WWE SmackDown on USA as well as the 10-week average in both categories.

Of note this week’s show was down 14.9% in overall viewers and 15.4% in 18-49 as compared to recent averages.

Date18-49Total viewers
11/14/20250.271,158,000
11/21/20250.291,210,000
11/28/20250.281,142,000
12/5/20250.241,063,000
12/12/20250.261,240,000
12/19/20250.21995,000
12/26/20250.271,138,000
1/2/20260.281,175,000
1/9/20260.26990,000
1/16/20260.21968,000
1/23/20260.22943,000
10-week average0.261,107,900

WWE SmackDown reportedly remaining at three hours for ‘foreseeable future’

Posted on by Josh Nason

Three-hour WWE SmackDowns on Fridays aren’t going away anytime soon according to a new report from WrestleVotes.

The outlet reported Thursday that for the “foreseeable future,” SmackDown will remain at three hours in a change from their previous plan as USA (NBCUniversal) is satisfied with the performance in the third hour.

The two sides reportedly had agreed to a final three-hour runtime on Friday, May 30th but plans changed. WrestleVotes noted it’s a fluid discussion about the length of the show and that a return to two hours could take place as early as this fall.

As recently as early-May, Paul “Triple H” Levesque had said the three-hour format was only temporary. That followed a January Pat McAfee appearance where Levesque said the same thing.

For the first time since 2019, the blue brand returned to USA last September as part of a five-year deal worth $1.4 billion in total that includes four Saturday Night’s Main Event specials on NBC and Peacock per year.