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The formula which has worked for Vince McMahon for two decades still works.
With himself and son Shane on the Dec. 18 episode of SmackDown, the blue brand’s audience rose 237K over the week prior, hitting 2,214,000 for an episode which was also the first since the company’s TLC pay-per-view this past Sunday. That’s a 12% increase over Dec. 11... not quite as good as the 15% week-to-week jump clan McMahon brought to Raw this week, but they’ll no doubt take it.
It was good enough to give WWE the sixth biggest audience among cable originals on the night, behind History Channel’s Curse of Oak Island and the top MSNBC & Fox News political talk shows.
Ratings shot up as well, to a night-winning .74 share of the 18 - 49 demographic.
Neither figure is likely to look that good for the next few weeks, as SmackDown falls on Christmas and New Year’s Day. Both shows will be pre-taped, and WWE is already working to entice viewers by hyping a spoiler from last night which will air on Dec. 25.
Here’s a list of SmackDown’s numbers from the past six months, where you can confirm the McMahon’s numbers weren’t as good as the ones the return of The Man drew last month:
Dec. 11 - 1.98 million / .68
Dec. 4 - 1.95 million / .66
Nov. 27 - 2.26 million / .81
Nov. 20 - 2.15 million / .69
Nov. 13 - 2.31 million / .90
Nov. 6 - 2.1 million / .68
Oct. 30 - 2.11 million / .73
Oct. 23 - 2.09 million / .69
Oct. 16 - 2.55 million / .92
Oct. 9 - 2.1 million / .67
Oct. 2 - 2.1 million / .68
Sept. 25 - 2.19 million / .72
Sept. 18 - 2.28 million / .78
Sept. 11 - 2.23 million / .72
Sept. 4 - 2.32 million / .77
Aug. 28 - 2.35 million / .75
Aug. 21 - 2.44 million / .77
Aug. 14 - 2.19 million / .7
Aug. 7 - 2.2 million / .73
July 31 - 2.4 million / .75
July 24 - 2.34 million / .75
July 17 - 2.29 million / .74
July 10 - 2.18 million / .68
July 3 - 2.01 million / .54
June 26 - 2.14 million / .64
June 19 - 2.32 million / .78
June 12 - 2.18 million / .66
June 5 - 2.14 million / .67
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.
Source: Showbuzz Daily