How the Grinch Stole the Demo from SmackDown

Friday Night SmackDown saw a rise in its viewership for a show built around a battle royal to set up the next contender for Roman Reigns.

Friday Night SmackDown saw a rise in its viewership for a show built around a battle royal to set up the next contender for Roman Reigns.

The November 26th edition of the show averaged 2,149,000 viewers with 741,000 (0.57) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.

The numbers are SmackDown’s highest since the October 22nd episode the day after the Crown Jewel event and represent increases of 4 percent in overall viewers and 8.5 percent in 18-49 from the week prior.

According to Brandon Thurston’s data, two of the key areas that saw increases were Males 18-49 (403,000 to 455,000) and Males 18-34 (117,000 and 175,000) from the prior week.

SmackDown finished second among network programming in the 18-49 demo right behind NBC’s airing of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ that edged out SmackDown with 0.58. SmackDown finished first in 18-34 among network programs.

WWE faced sports competition from the two college football games airing on ESPN and FS 1 that finished #2 (0.61) and #6 (0.26) among cable originals that day.

For the month of November, SmackDown averaged 2,103,000 viewers and 723,000 in the 18-49 demo over four episodes on Fox.

In Canada, SmackDown averaged 144,000 viewers and 72,500 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It was a competitive night that included Curling, NHL, and NBA coverage. SmackDown finished tenth in overall viewers among the sports programming for the night but was fourth in the demo.

About John Pollock 5483 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.