WWE SmackDown Viewership, Rating Trend Upward For 5/21 Episode
A slight bounce back from last week
Following rather paltry numbers for last week's WrestleMania Backlash go-home show, both the overnight viewership and rating for this week's WWE SmackDown trickled up a little bit.
Per TV Line*, the May 21 episode of SmackDown averaged 1,830,000 viewers, a slight increase from the 1,800,000 viewers for last week's show.
While the viewership average did increase, it's still down a ways from the modern SmackDown norm of slightly over two million viewers a week. Last week's viewership was the lowest since December 18 (when SmackDown was moved to FS1, due to college football).
In better news, the 18-49 demo rating increased to a .50, after dropping to a .40 last week. That .40 rating was down heavily from the .60 garnered by the "Throwback" edition of SmackDown on May 7.
SmackDown tied for the nightly win in 18-49 with ABC's Shark Tank (which nearly doubled SmackDown's overall audience with 3.4 million viewers).
* The usual source for wrestling TV ratings, Showbuzz Daily, is currently undergoing maintenance. Showbuzz generally provides a more in depth analysis of demo ratings than what is listed in this report.
Written by Justin Henry
In addition to writing lists and commentaries for Cultaholic, Justin is also a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine, and is co-author of the WWE-related book Titan Screwed: Lost Smiles, Stunners, and Screwjobs.
