Friday’s episode of SmackDown, which was the go-home show for Backlash, drew an average of 2.059 million viewers on Fox, down by 16.7% from the previous week’s WWE Draft episode. It was the lowest viewership for a Fox airing of the show since August 26 of last year.
Despite the decline in viewership, SmackDown managed to top all of network television with a 0.52 rating in the 18-49 demo. However, that rating was down by 24.2% from the previous week and ties the show’s lowest rating on Fox since November 4. SmackDown also outperformed all of the broadcast networks with a 0.32 rating in the 18-34 demo.
It’s worth noting that SmackDown went head-to-head with an NBA playoff game on ESPN that ranked first overall on cable with a 1.65 rating in 18-49 and over five million viewers overall.
When compared to the same week in 2022, SmackDown’s overall viewership was up by 3.1% and up by 13% in the 18-49 demo. It’s also interesting to note that last year’s show went against a similarly performing NBA game (4.4 million/1.59 rating in 18-49).
Overall, while SmackDown’s viewership was down for this particular episode, the show still managed to perform well in key demos and hold its own against tough competition from other programming.
