WWE SmackDown viewership down for Rumble fallout, 18-49 demo up

Despite both Royal Rumble winners making appearances, viewership for Friday’s Royal Rumble fallout edition of SmackDown dropped two percent from the previous week, averaging 2.257 million viewers on Fox.

It was the lowest viewership total for SmackDown since January 8 but above what the show had been doing in December.

SmackDown was up 4.8 percent in the 18-49 demo, however, drawing a 0.65 rating, its second-highest number so far in 2021.

SmackDown finished second on the networks in 18-49 and beat everything on cable. It only trailed ABC’s Shark Tank.

The show also finished behind only Shark Tank in the 18-34 demo with a 0.34 rating. That was down 10.5 percent from the previous week.

With the major networks all airing original programming again, SmackDown finished last in terms of total viewers, with the next lowest being Dateline NBC’s average of 2.836 million viewers.

Year-over-year, SmackDown was down 11.1 percent in total viewers, down 18.8 percent in 18-49, and down 32 percent in 18-34. This means the show is skewing much older than it was at this time in 2020.