Friday Night SmackDown ranks first on television, Young Rock numbers down

Coming off a red-hot angle at the Royal Rumble, SmackDown was the top program on television on Friday.

Photo Courtesy: WWE

Coming off a red-hot angle at the Royal Rumble, SmackDown was the top program on television on Friday.

The February 3rd edition of Friday Night SmackDown from Greenville averaged 2,384,000 viewers and approximately 790,000 (0.61) in the 18-49 demographic, per Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.

While the numbers were down six percent in viewers and ten percent in the demo, they were still SmackDown’s second-highest of the year and placed them above all other programs on Friday.

The previous week’s show was a very strong set of numbers including its second-highest audience since Christmas Day 2020.

Female viewership did fall 15 percent among the 18-49 demo with a 26 percent decrease among women in the 18-34 demo. Conversely, males fell seven percent in both the 18-49 and 18-34 demos from last week.

For women 18-34, it was SmackDown’s lowest number in that demo since December 16, 2022.

Adults 35-49 were down by eight percent with the same level drop among both males and females.

In Canada, the show averaged 246,400 viewers and 88,800 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 and was fourth for the night among sports programs. They were down from last week’s figures of 283,000 and 126,400 but they are still doing well above what SmackDown had been averaging.

This week’s show included a “State of the Bloodline” segment at the end where Sami Zayn appeared and attacked Roman Reigns, which led to the official announcement that the two will have a match on 2/18 at Elimination Chamber in Montreal.

Young Rock on NBC returned this past Friday with a show focusing on the creation of the Royal Rumble match by Pat Patterson. The show averaged 1,259,000 viewers and 0.22 in the 18-49 demographic and finished in last place among the big four networks.

From the last airing of Young Rock on 1/20, the show fell 14 percent among overall viewers and a drop from 0.27 to 0.22 in the 18-49 demo.

About John Pollock 5792 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.