It was the start of a long holiday weekend here in the States, and the Aug. 29 SmackDown did air on tape here after the show from Lyon, France streaming live a few hours earlier for much of the world. But it featured John Cena and a title match, and was also the final push to a premium live event.
So while we weren’t expecting big numbers, we didn’t expect “lowest non-preemption SmackDown in the history of the show for total viewership”. That from Wrestlenomics, which also told us last Friday’s show was
the second-lowest rated non-preemption SmackDown ever (only the Dec. 29, 2023 “Best of” show did worse in the blue show’s normal timeslot). The numbers themselves come from Programming Insider: the latest SmackDown was watched by 1,147,000 viewers on USA Network , where it did a .28 rating among 18-49 year olds.
Historically bad, but not so bad relative to the competition, though. SmackDown was second on cable to ESPN’s coverage of Colorado vs. Georgia Tech in college football. That won the night on all of television with an overall audience of 3.48 million viewers and a .89 in the demo. SmackDown was third among all originals on the night, with FOX’s college football game grabbing second with a .64 rating from 2.83 million viewers.
We’ll see if CM Punk and his special guest bring the numbers this Friday, live from Chicago.
And our running tally of SmackDown’s numbers over the past year is back!
- Aug. 30, 2024 – 2.05 million viewers / .53 demo rating
- Sept. 6 – 1.77 / .45
- Sept. 13* – 1.72 / .55
- Sept. 20 – 1.49 / .45
- Sept. 27 – 1.57 / .45
- Oct. 4 – 1.52 / .47
- Oct. 11 – 1.65 / .49
- Oct. 18 – 1.38 / .42
- Oct. 25 – 1.42 / .43
- Nov. 1 – 1.43 / .42
- Nov. 8 – 1.53 / .47
- Nov. 15 – 1.23 / .32
- Nov. 22 – 1.58 / .46
- Nov. 29 – 1.34 / .40
- Dec. 6 – 1.49 /.44
- Dec. 13 – 1.53 / .47
- Dec. 20 – 1.33 / .37
- Dec. 27 – 1.44 / .41
- Jan. 3, 2025** – 1.53 / .45
- Jan. 10 – 1.44 / .40
- Jan. 17 – 1.40 / . 42
- Jan. 24 – 1.44 / .44
- Jan. 31 – 1.58 / .51
- Feb. 7 – 1.51 / .48
- Feb. 14 – 1.38 / .42
- Feb. 21 – 1.74 / .51
- Feb. 28 – 1.73 / .52
- March 7 – 1.74 / .52
- March 14 – 1.57 / .52
- March 21 – 1.46 / .39
- March 28 – 1.35 / .40
- April 4 – 1.58 / .47
- April 11 – 1.55 / .45
- April 18 – 1.74 / .55
- April 25 – 1.60 / .51
- May 2 – 1.41 / .37
- May 9 – 1.46 / .41
- May 16 – 1.29 / .36
- May 23 – 1.38 / .33
- May 30 – 1.38 / .34
- June 6 – 1.42 / .42
- June 13 – 1.40 / .38
- June 20 – 1.52 / .38
- June 27 – 1.45 / .41
- July 4*** – 1.17 / .32
- July 11 – 1.40 / .37
- July 18 – 1.55 / .45
- July 25 – 1.71 / .48
- Aug. 1 – 1.54 / .46
- Aug. 8 – 1.56 / .48
- Aug. 15 – 1.43 / .35
- Aug. 22 – 1.26 / .35
- Aug. 29 – 1.15 / .28
* Moved from FOX to USA Network (broadcast to cable)
** Added a third hour
*** Returned to two hours
For complete results from the latest SmackDown, our live blog is here. To read a recap & review of the night’s events click here.
