Total Divas rating down big from last week up against Sunday Night Football

Throughout its first six episodes, Total Divas, the reality television show on the E! channel focusing on the lives of seven WWE Divas both in and out of the ring, was a hit. Indeed, even when it was facing strong competition from the likes of SummerSlam or the MTV Video Music Awards, the ratings were strong.

No longer.

Indeed, this past Sunday night's episode, the seventh in the series first season, scored the lowest rating to date. The audience was shockingly low, actually, coming in at an average of just 1.09 million viewers.

Here's how that compares to the rest of the season:

Episode one: 1.34 million
Episode two: 1.53 million
Episode three: 1.67 million
Episode four: 1.34 million
Episode five: 1.46 million
Episode six: 1.52 million
Episode seven: 1.09 million

Ouch.

There appear to be two potential culprits, one just a little more plausible than the other. The first is that Keeping Up With The Kardashians is no longer providing first-run episodes as a lead-in, which was obviously a big boost. And secondly, Sunday Night Football is back on NBC, with the featured game this week being the Dallas Cowboys 36-31 victory over the New York Giants.

Next week's episode of Total Divas is the mid-season finale, so we'll see if it holds up against similarly stiff competition when the San Francisco 49ers play the Seattle Seahawks and the Kardashians still don't provide a lead in.