SmackDown ratings rise again despite NBA & NHL competition

As all wrestling shows are this time of year, last Friday’s SmackDown aired opposite NBA and NHL Playoff games. But competition hasn’t impacted everything the same way, so how would WWE’s May 10 offering fare?

According to Programming Insider, the latest episode of SmackDown was watched by 2,128,000 viewers and did a .62 rating among 18-49 year old rating. The overall audience was essentially flat for the third week in a row. But for the second straight Friday, the demo number was up by about 3%. That was again good enough to make it the highest rated show on broadcast by a wide margin (CBS’ Fire Country was second with a .34).

Cable numbers aren’t out as of this writing, but both the night’s basketball games almost certainly will have better 18-49 numbers than SmackDown. The pair of hockey games also likely did well, but as long as WWE is also growing its demo rating and helping FOX finish first in its category...

More King & Queen of the Ring build this Friday, but while they’re guaranteed to be going up against one NBA game on May 17 both hockey series with games pencilled in for that night might be over. So we’ll see how that show does.

In the meantime... here’s a rundown of the past year’s worth of SmackDown’s numbers:

• May 12, 2023 - 2.15 million viewers / .56 demo rating
• May 19 - 2.13 / .53
• May 26 - 2.16 / .52
• June 2 - 2.56 / .73
• June 9 - 2.28 / .60
• June 16 - 2.43 / .67
• June 23 - 2.35 / .61
• June 30 - 2.51 / .69
• July 7 - 2.56 / .76
• July 14 - 2.31 / .62
• July 21* - 1.23 / .36
• July 28 - 2.32 / .61
• Aug. 4 - 2.25 / .62
• Aug. 11 - 2.1 / .55
• Aug. 18 - 2.09 / .55
• Aug. 25 - 2.65 / .78
• Sept. 1 - 2.44 / .65
• Sept. 8 - 2.09 / .53
• Sept. 15 - 2.57 / .70
• Sept. 22 - 2.23 / .63
• Sept. 29 - 2.30 / .60
• Oct. 6 - 2.32 / .64
• Oct. 13 - 2.42 / .62
• Oct. 20 - 2.25 / .59
• Oct. 28* - 1.15 / .35
• Nov. 3 - 2.12 / .53
• Nov. 10 - 2.2 / .57
• Nov. 17 - 2.21 / .62
• Nov. 24* - 789,000 / .24
• Dec. 1 - 2.04 million / .59
• Dec. 8 - 2.38 / .63
• Dec. 15 - 2.24 / .55
• Dec. 22 - 2.11 / .55
• Dec. 29** - 1.36 / .28
• Jan. 5, 2024 - 2.47 / .67
• Jan. 12 - 2.38 / .64
• Jan. 19 - 2.41 / .62
• Jan. 26 - 2.48 / .71
• Feb. 2 - 2.47 / .74
• Feb. 9 - 2.58 / .75
• Feb. 16 - 2.56 / .75
• Feb. 23 - 2.27 / .62
• Mar. 1 - 2.35 / .64
• Mar. 8 - 2.44 / .69
• Mar. 15 - 2.34 / .68
• Mar. 22 - 2.24 / .61
• Mar. 29 - 2.20 / .60
• April 5 - 2.60 / .77
• April 12 - 2.5 / .76
• April 19 - 2.33 / .63
• April 26 - 2.14 / .58
• May 3 - 2.14 / .60
• May 10 - 2.13 / .62

* Aired on FS1
** “Best of” clip show

For complete results and this week’s SmackDown live blog click here, to read a recap & review of the night’s events click here, and to check out video highlights of the episode click here.