WWE SmackDown viewership down, 18-49 rating up

The Friday, October 4 episode of WWE SmackDown averaged 1.518 million viewers on USA Network, down 3.2 percent from the previous week. It’s the second-lowest audience total of the four episodes since SmackDown moved back to USA Network last month.

SmackDown topped the prime time cable charts with a 0.47 rating in the 18-49 demo. That’s up 4.4 percent from last week and is the best rating the show has done since September 13, the first episode back on USA.

Friday’s show was the Bad Blood go-home edition of SmackDown. It went head-to-head with college football on both ESPN and Fox as well as the WNBA playoffs on ESPN2. SmackDown was second on all of television behind the Fox college football game in terms of 18-49 rating.

As compared to the same week in 2023 (when the show still aired on Fox), SmackDown’s overall audience was down 34.5 percent while its 18-49 rating was down 26.6 percent.

Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership totals and 18-49 demo ratings for SmackDown, along with the 10-week average in both categories. The first seven weeks on the chart are from when the show was still on Fox with the last four being USA Network broadcasts. This week’s show was down 21.8 percent in overall viewers and down 13 percent in 18-49 as compared to the recent averages.