Last week, Smackdown was bumped from Fox due to the MLB World Series, and aired on FS1 instead, where it did record low numbers. Then of course, this week put some big obstacles in the show’s path, with so many WWE Superstars stuck in Saudi Arabia, and unable to make it back for the show. On the other hand, it was at least back on the Fox network, and without a World Series to draw away viewers. So in short there were a lot of questions about how it would do.
The answer turns out to be “Very well.” Via Showbuzz Daily, Smackdown had an average of was watched by an average of 2.543 million people on Friday night. That’s not just massively better than the absurdly low 888,000 viewers the show got on FS1 last week, it’s also up a bit from 2.418 million viewers two weeks ago, the last time Smackdown aired on Fox.
This Friday’s Smackdown also got a 0.8 rating in the key 18-49 demographic, the highest rating of the night for that demo. Last week on FS1 the demo rating was just 0.27.
Aside from the fact that it’s obviously better to air it on Fox than FS1, it’s not entirely clear what this says about the Smackdown that was. While some may have turned in to see what on Earth they were going to do with so many Superstars unavailable, those of us who keep up with such stories online are certainly a low percentage of the overall viewership. This bounce probably has more to do with the World Series being over and Smackdown being back on its usual home, where Fox seems to be doing a good job of promoting it.
