Despite the heavy March Madness coverage, Friday Night SmackDown hit a six-week high in its viewership this past week.
The March 20 episode from Raleigh averaged 1,439,000 viewers and 436,000 viewers (0.32) in the 18-49 demographic on the USA Network.
The audience rose by 1.5% from last week’s number and was SmackDown’s highest mark since February 6.
In the 18-49 demographic, the show was identical to the previous week and ranked sixth among cable programming in prime time on Friday behind TBS & TNT’s various coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
The show saw a 25% increase among females in the core demo, growing from 134,000 viewers to 167,000 this week. Males in the demo fell by nine percent to 262,000 viewers.
Adults 18-34 dropped from 0.18 to 0.16, and adults 25-54 saw a small dip from 0.45 to 0.44.
The show was the follow-up to the previous week’s closing angle involving Randy Orton attacking and bloodying Cody Rhodes and Orton providing his explanation this past Friday.
SmackDown also ranked on Netflix’s top ten chart in five countries, including Canada, Bolivia & Saudi Arabia.
Data: Programming Insider, Wrestlenomics & Tudum
