SmackDown ratings, viewers down without big matches

For last week’s SmackDown, WWE spent a week promoting a steel cage main event. It gave the show it’s best demo rating and biggest audience since January.

For the Mar. 12 episode, there was little specific advertising. What they were promising - Big E’s return, a Roman Reigns/Daniel Bryan contract signing - was pretty vague, and without obvious implications.

Not surprising then that SmackDown reverted back to the same numbers it had been doing before they hyped Bryan vs. Jey Uso the Friday before.

Viewership remained above two million, but just barely. The 2.1 million average across the show’s two hours was down ~7% from Mar. 5. The 18 - 49 year old demo number dipped a little farther, down 16.67% to .5. That kept FOX in a tie for second with a rerun of Oprah’s Royal interview and Dateline NBC.

In a continued sign of WWE’s improvements with the younger demographics, however, SmackDown held a .3 with the 18 - 34 year old set. That put it in a tie for first with Shark Tank and Oprah, Harry & Meghan.

Here are the fast nationals:

Showbuzz Daily

And here’s our running tracker of overnight numbers for the current season. You can also access the tab of year one numbers here (all data still via Showbuzz Daily).

Next week is the Fastlane go home show - and more importantly, WWE’s advertising a Edge’s return match (with stakes!) and a SmackDown Women’s title bout.

For complete results and the live blog for SmackDown this week click here. To read a review of the night’s events click here. For a full playlist of the show click here.