WWE SmackDown draws second-highest overnight ratings since April

Image: WWE

Friday night’s SmackDown on Fox averaged 2.282 million viewers in the fast nationals.

The show averaged 2.284 million viewers in hour one and 2.280 million viewers in hour two.

This is the third straight week that SmackDown has been up in the fast nationals. Aside from the Christmas night episode that had a huge lead-in from the NFL, this was the largest overnight viewership for SmackDown since the post-WrestleMania 36 edition of the show in April.

The overnight number was up six percent from last week.

Fox placed behind all the other major networks in terms of total viewers on Friday night. In the 18-49 demo, SmackDown drew a 0.6 rating, the same as last week’s overnight number. That was second on the networks behind Shark Tank on ABC. 

SmackDown also matched last week’s overnight rating in the 18-34 demo with a 0.3. That tied three other shows for the top spot among network programming.

As compared to the same week last year, SmackDown was down 7.6 percent in viewership, 14.3 percent in the 18-49 demo, and 25 percent in 18-34.

Final ratings for the show will be out early next week. Last week’s SmackDown averaged 2.153 million viewers in the fast nationals and 2.262 million viewers in the final ratings.

Here’s a look at the last 10 weeks of overnight viewership and key demo ratings for SmackDown (note: the December 18 episode aired on FS1):