Rampage gets slammed at earlier time; SmackDown rating rebounds

The ratings are in for May 6, and live sports continue to dominate the charts. They had a much more direct effect on one of Friday’s pro wrestling shows than the other last week.

SmackDown‘s overall viewership rose slightly. Rounding up, WWE drew 2 million for FOX. The 18-49 year old audience was way up (21%) over the dismal number from the week prior. The .46 rating puts the blue brand back where it had been before April 29. It also tied with Shark Tank for the best number among broadcast shows.

Including cable, SmackDown was the fifth highest rated show in the demo. NBA Playoff basketball handily won the night again — the two games on ESPN averaged 4.16 million viewers and a 1.44 rating in the demo.

The NHL Playoffs don’t do those kind of numbers (the 7pm ET game on TNT had 739K viewers and did a .21 in the demo), but they are a priority for TNT. Hockey pushed Rampage to a 5:30pm ET/2:30pm PT start, and gave AEW’s b-show its worst ever ratings. Rampage finished 49th among cable originals with 292K total viewers and a .11 in 18-49.

SmackDown should be able to maintain or build on these numbers coming out of a PPV PLE this week. Rampage is currently on TNT’s schedule for 6pm ET/3pm PT this Friday, so... yeah.

Numbers via Showbuzz Daily