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Raw proved a taped show didn’t have to be the kiss of death on Monday. On Tues., May 14 SmackDown proved that it can be, at least when it’s combined with a huge night of basketball.
Going up against a NBA Conference Finals game featuring the team which has won three of the last four titles, and the league’s draft lottery, WWE got a historically small audience to tune in to Team Blue’s Money in the Bank ‘go home’ show, recorded in London before it aired in the States. The 1,827,000 viewers was down more than a 100K from last week, and broke the record set just two weeks ago for the worst viewership the blue brand’s ever had on USA Network.
It wasn’t just the Golden State Warriors and the Zion Williamson sweepstakes beating up wrestling, either. A hockey playoff game, and the usual MSNBC & Fox News shows joined in, and made SmackDown the 11th most watched cable original on the night.
The ratings number wasn’t record-setting. But it wasn’t good, either. At a .56 share of the overall 18 - 49 year old audience, WWE was right in between where it’s been the last two weeks. That was sixth best on the night, behind NBA and NHL shows.
A glimmer of hope came from Miz & Mrs which was up substantially in both viewers (1,009,000) and rating (.39) over last week.
We’d say it can’t get worse, and it probably won’t because they’ll at least be live for the foreseeable future. But until basketball is done, it might stay this bad. Think on that while you glance over the numbers from the past six months:
May 7 - 1.93 / .58
April 30 - 1.83 / .54
April 23 - 2.07 / .71
April 16 - 2.22 / .74
April 9 - 2.2 / .78
April 2 - 2.14 / .71
Mar. 26 - 2.39 / .79
Mar. 19 - 2.21 / .74
Mar. 12 - 2.2 / .71
Mar. 5 - 2.16 / .7
Feb. 26 - 2.15 / .76
Feb. 19 - 2.27 / .75
Feb. 12 - 2.03 / .66
Feb. 5 - 1.84 / .64
Jan. 29 - 2.14 / .7
Jan. 22 - 2.14 / .69
Jan. 15 - 2.14 / .7
Jan. 8 - 2.03 million / .72
Jan. 1 - 2.09 million / .68
Dec. 25 - 1.9 million / .61
Dec. 18 - 2.21 million / .74
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
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