The post-WrestleMania doldrums are definitely in full effect this week on WWE television. We were just talking about how Raw viewership dropped 9% to its lowest numbers in 2019. Now it seems a similar effect has cast a shadow over Smackdown Live, a show main-evented this week by Kevin Owens talking to New Day action figures. Unsurprisingly, it’s followed Raw into the realm of lower viewership.
As reported on 411Mania, this week’s Smackdown only had 1.833 million viewers, which is down 12% since last week. That’s the lowest viewership since February 5th of this year, when Smackdown aired opposite the President’s State of the Union speech. The show had a 0.54 demographic rating, which is a severe 24% drop off from last week, and ties the worst ratings Smackdown has ever gotten on the USA Network.
Smackdown Live was the seventh most-watched cable show on Tuesday night, which is lower than it usually ranks. However, it was a particularly tough night on cable, with two NBA playoff games, an NHL semifinal game, and the popular reality shows Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Curse of Oak Island all competing for viewers. Still, these numbers don’t look great for WWE, but hopefully the imminent return of Daniel Bryan will lead to a pick-up in viewers.
