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The holidays can be a dead zone for television, so it’s probably best to not overreact to SmackDown’s numbers for the next couple weeks - and be optimistic about the drops being small. But it’s hard to not be a little discouraged that the audience is slipping down instead of inching upward, and the powers-that-be likely aren’t thrilled with the trend since the 900th episode.
Dec. 13’s show, which for the second straight week promised but didn’t deliver a title shot for James Ellsworth, and featured two different #1 contender-determining matches, drew an audience of 2,361,000, down from last week’s 2,479,000. That was good for ninth biggest of the evening among cable shows.
The rating among 18 - 49 year olds also dropped down to a .73.
Next week will probably be even lower, coming the five days before Christmas. WWE has planned accordingly, loading up the following week’s show with John Cena’s return and an AJ Styles vs. Dolph Ziggler World championship match, while leaving Dec. 20 without much of note announced in advance.
For complete results and the live blog for SmackDown this week click here. To read a complete recap & review of all the night’s events click here. For a full playlist of the show click here.