Holiday weekend show draws SmackDown’s smallest ever overnight audience on FOX

Fri., July 2 was the start of the long Fourth of July holiday here in the United States. WWE dodged competition from the NBA Playoffs on the night, but they did have to go against live sports in the form of Game Three of the NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals.

Combine that with the fact SmackDown is still in treading water mode with another couple weeks before they return to the road - and performing in front of live fans - with the July 16 episode, and you gets some lackluster television numbers.

How lackluster? According to SpoilerTV, an average audience of 1.699 million. That’s just the overnight number, so it figures to tick up roughly 5% in the final numbers. But even if it does add another 100K, it’s still going to be the worst viewership the blue brand’s had in almost two years on FOX (this doesn’t count any of the episodes which were bumped to FS1).

The 18 - 49 year old demo rating was also down. The .4 overnight number isn’t a historic low, however. And it was good enough for second place on the night, behind the hockey game on NBC.

We’ll see what happens with the final live ThunderDome show next Friday.

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.