How Was This Week's Taped WWE SmackDown Viewership Following Last Week's Year Low?
This week's WWE SmackDown, featuring Shinsuke Nakamura defeating WWE Champion AJ Styles in a non-title main event, drew 2.298 million viewers. This is up a bit from last week's 2.293 million viewers, which was the lowest SmackDown viewership going back to the Halloween 2017 episode, which drew 2.119 million viewers. The last non-holiday SmackDown episode to draw lower than last week was the June 13th, 2017 episode, which drew 2.072 million viewers.
This week's SmackDown was a taped show from London, England.
SmackDown was #8 in viewership for the night on cable, behind the NBA Playoffs, SportsCenter, NBA Draft Lottery, Hannity, Rachel Maddow, Tucker Carlson and The Ingraham Angle. SmackDown was #4 in the 18-49 demographic, behind the NBA Playoffs, SportsCenter and the NBA Draft Lottery.
The NBA Playoffs topped the night with more than 8 million viewers.
In comparison, Monday's RAW drew 2.741 million viewers, up from last week's 2.689 million viewers. It topped SmackDown viewership by 19%.
Below is our 2018 SmackDown Viewership Tracker:
January 2nd Episode: 2.720 million viewers
January 9th Episode: 2.603 million viewers
January 16th Episode: 2.602 million viewers
January 23rd Episode: 2.580 million viewers
January 30th Episode: 2.509 million viewers (Post-Royal Rumble Episode)
February 6th Episode: 2.505 million viewers
February 13th Episode: 2.449 million viewers
February 20th Episode: 2.613 million viewers
February 27th Episode: 2.692 million viewers
March 6th Episode: 2.590 million viewers
March 13th Episode: 2.771 million viewers (post-Fastlane episode)
March 20th Episode: 2.888 million viewers
March 27th Episode: 2.576 million viewers
April 3rd Episode: 2.467 million viewers
April 10th Episode: 2.952 million viewers (post-WrestleMania 34 episode)
April 17th Episode: 2.796 million viewers (Superstar Shakeup episode)
April 24th Episode: 2.549 million viewers
May 1st Episode: 2.436 million viewers
May 8th Episode: 2.293 million viewers (post-Backlash episode)
May 15th Episode: 2.298 million viewers (taped show from London)
May 22nd Episode:
2017 Total: 132.401 million viewers
2017 Average: 2.546 million viewers per episode