The WWE Smackdown Live brand produced what was an average television show this week as they continued on the road to Hell in a Cell. It was headlined by an impromptu Fatal 4-Way women’s match that was set up during a mid-show promo. The only advertised match was AJ Styles vs. Baron Corbin for the US Title, but they ended up running an angle instead of doing the actual match.
Compared to last week’s show, which advertised the TV return of Vince McMahon and three title matches, they didn’t load up this week at all. How did that affect the weekly TV ratings numbers? There was a decline, as expected.
This week’s WWE Smackdown Live audience number was 2.510 million viewers according to Showbuzz Daily. That number is down from last week’s show, which was a huge success at 2.754 million viewers. As I noted last week, it was going to be tough to repeat that number and it’s no surprise that they were unable to get there again. This week’s show was consistent with what Smackdown usually does.
The regular Smackdown audience for the live broadcast in the US is around 2.5 million viewers every week. That’s the regular audience that tunes in. Last week there was a bit of a spike thanks to Vince McMahon and three title matches, but generally speaking it’s going to keep doing around 2.5 million viewers as long as there is not major competition against it. In seven of the last ten weeks, the audience has been in the 2.5 million range.
Next week’s Smackdown currently has nothing announced for it, which is rare for the blue brand because normally they try to announce something a week in advance.
What should they do on next week’s Smackdown to get the ratings back up? More Rusev celebrations because they are great!
https://twitter.com/totaldivaseps/status/910299203938738176
More Rusev celebrations = more viewers? We think so.
