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It was impressive the way SmackDown hung in there against the NFL Draft last week. Without that competition, and with a promotional gimmick, the numbers were even more impressive on Fri. May 7.
With an average viewership of 2.16 million in the overnights, the blue show was up more than 12% from April 30. It was also WWE’s biggest Friday night audience since early March. Ratings jumped in both the key demographics, winning the night outright for FOX in both 18 - 34 year olds and 18 - 49 year olds.
Here are the fast nationals:
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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).
SmackDown should have the night to itself without major live competition for another week. The NHL playoffs might start next week, but because of COVID make-ups that may need to be played, it’s not clear exactly when they will. Those and the NBA playoffs will definitely start to compete for eyeballs by the 21st. We’ll see how that affects things as we head into the summer months.
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.