WWE SmackDown below two million viewers for first time since August

Final ratings are in for Friday night’s SmackDown on Fox. The show averaged 1.99 million viewers, down 13.4 percent from the previous week.

This is the lowest viewership number SmackDown has done since August 7, which was before WWE moved to the ThunderDome.

Friday’s SmackDown drew  a 0.57 rating in the 18-49 demo, down 12.3 percent from the previous week. That was third on television, trailing two ABC shows but beating everything else on network and cable TV.

SmackDown drew the lowest viewership among all programming on the major networks on Friday.

In 18-34, SmackDown averaged a 0.35 rating, which was second behind ABC’s Shark Tank. That number was actually up 2.9 percent from the previous week, so this SmackDown episode actually skewed a lot younger than the week before. With ongoing coverage of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, that would explain the loss of older viewers.

As compared to the same week in 2020, SmackDown was down 19.2 percent in overall viewership. The show was also down 18.6 percent in the 18-49 demo and down 30 percent in the 18-34 demo.