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There was a time not all that long ago that SmackDown was drawing anywhere from 2.6 to 2.9 million viewers each and every week on SyFy. The show lost some of its audience when it moved from Friday to Thursday, and has since lost a little more after a move to the USA Network.
There was initial hope when numbers improved in the first month after the switch in channels:
- Jan. 7: 2.75 million
- Jan. 14: 2.33 million
- Jan. 21: 2.75 million
- Jan. 28: 2.72 million
The numbers dropped a week later and have settled in in the low 2's over the past month:
- May 12: 2.26 million
- May 19: 2.29 million
- May 26: 2.11 million
- June 2: 2.16 million
Reports have indicated one of the reasons WWE decided to move SmackDown to Tuesday nights as a live program was USA Network's unease at fading viewership. The move to Thursday and the switch to a bigger cable channel was supposed to do the trick, and it had the opposite effect.
Will this latest move turn things around?
Stay tuned.