WWE SmackDown Draws Lowest Viewership Of The Year With Daniel Bryan Vs. Jeff Hardy Main Event
This week's WWE SmackDown, featuring Daniel Bryan defeating WWE United States Champion Jeff Hardy in a non-title main event, drew 2.195 million viewers. This is down 4.5% from last week's 2.298 million viewers for the taped show from London and is the lowest blue brand viewership of 2018. This is the lowest SmackDown viewership since the Halloween 2017 episode, which drew 2.119 million viewers. The last non-holiday SmackDown episode to do this bad was the June 13th, 2017 episode, which drew 2.072 million viewers.
SmackDown was #7 in viewership for the night on cable, behind the NBA Playoffs, Inside The NBA Playoffs, Hannity, Rachel Maddow, The Ingraham Angle and Tucker Carlson. SmackDown was #3 for the night in the 18-49 demographic, behind the NBA Playoffs and Inside The NBA Playoffs.
The NBA topped the night with more than 10 million viewers.
In comparison, Monday's RAW drew 2.668 million viewers, down from last week's 2.741 million viewers for the taped show from London, the lowest viewership of 2018 and the lowest viewership since the June 12th, 2017 episode, which drew 2.542 million viewers.
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: 2.195 million viewers
May 29th Episode:
2017 Total: 132.401 million viewers
2017 Average: 2.546 million viewers per episode