The new methodology of viewership tracking continues to wreak havoc on professional wrestling, with SmackDown registering a new all-time low figure.
Under the new Big Data + Panel model, which has a far wider sample reach, SmackDown saw an average of 1,030,000 viewers and 313,000 viewers (0.23) in the 18-49 demographic this past Friday on the USA Network.
Both figures represent the lowest in the history of SmackDown aside from several pre-empted editions of the show, which aired on FS1 during the program’s contract with Fox.
The viewership declined by 17% from last week, with a 34% drop in the core demo. Males in the demo decreased from 289,000 viewers to 182,000, while females fell from 174,000 viewers to 120,000.
Despite the all-time low, SmackDown managed to rank third among cable originals for the night behind Game 1 of the WNBA finals (1,858,000 viewers and 0.44 in the 18-49 demo) and the twelve-minute College Football Scoreboard, which directly followed the WNBA game on ESPN. SmackDown out-ranked a college football game on ESPN2 and Fox News’ programming.
SmackDown also ranked fourth among all television programs on Friday in the 18-49 demographic.
Under the old model of “panel only”, SmackDown averaged 1,395,000 viewers and 531,000 in the 18-49 over the final eight weeks of the old system. The first two weeks under Big Data + Panel have seen the show average 1,134,000 viewers and 395,000 viewers in the demo, which are declines of 18.7% and 25.6% respectively.
This Friday’s episode of SmackDown will be tape-delayed in the U.S. as it airs at 8 a.m. ET on Netflix internationally from Perth, Western Australia. If the New York Yankees win their game against the Toronto Blue Jays tonight, SmackDown will air against the deciding fifth game.
Data: Programming Insider & Wrestlenomics
