WWE SmackDown Ratings Back Up For Its Half Of World Heavyweight Title Tournament

Last week, WWE and AEW reportedly stacked their TV lineups to try to combat viewer attrition to the NBA and NHL playoffs, and for the most part, it appears to have worked. Though "WWE Raw" was down, even with its half of the World Heavyweight Championship Tournament, "WWE NXT" and "AEW Dynamite" were both up, and now, as of Monday afternoon, we know that "WWE SmackDown" was as well.

According to reporting from ShowbuzzDaily and Wrestlenomics, Friday's show averaged 2,149,000 viewers across its two hours (up four percent over last week), approximately 731,000 of which were in the "key demo" most valued by advertisers, adults aged 18 to 49 (up eight percent over the prior week). The latter figure translates to a 0.56 rating in P18-49, which made it the night's top show on broadcast television, though it trailed behind ESPN's NBA playoff coverage on cable for the day's top spots overall.

For a bigger picture look at the ratings, the Wrestlenomics Patreon page tracks how "SmackDown" did in various demographics in relation to the median of the prior four weeks' numbers. By that metric, there wasn't much to learn from, as all of the listed changes were well within Nielsen's stated ten-percent margin of error: The biggest percentage gain was three percent for adults aged 35 to 49, while the biggest percentage loss was six percent for adults aged 18 to 34. And despite the week-over-week improvements, the May 12 rating was flat compared to the median in adults aged 18 to 49, while total viewers actually dropped three percent from the median.