Friday Night SmackDown continued the downward trend in viewership under the new Big Data + Panel methodology with another all-time low figure.
The October 10 episode averaged 1,025,000 viewers and 299,000 viewers (0.22) in the 18-49 demographic on the USA Network and became the new all-time low figures in the history of the show, except for several episodes airing on FS1 during the Fox era.
There were multiple factors beyond the new Nielsen methodology working against Friday’s show. It was a rare tape-delayed version of SmackDown, which aired twelve hours earlier internationally from Perth, Western Australia, and had a larger sports competition.
SmackDown aired against Game 5 of the ALDS between the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners, which averaged 8,049,000 viewers and a 1.74 rating in the 18-49 demo on Fox, and also aired against Game 4 of the WNBA Finals (1,437,000 viewers and 0.33) on ESPN and a college football game (1,108,000 viewers and 0.27) on ESPN2.
WWE fell to fourth place among cable programming on Friday and replaced last week’s episode with the lowest in the history of SmackDown.
Within the 18-49 demographic, SmackDown saw a small increase of seven percent among male viewers but dropped by eleven percent with females.
After three weeks under the Big Data + Panel method, SmackDown is averaging 1,098,000 viewers and a 0.22 rating in the 18-49 demographic compared to 1,414,000 viewers and 0.42 over the prior three weeks using panel-only data.
Data: Programming Insider & Wrestlenomics
