After a stellar start last week, SmackDwn dropped back to more normalized levels in its second week on USA Network. Thursday night’s episode brought in 2.332 million viewers and a 0.7 rating in the 18 – 49 demographic. Those numbers are down 15% and 18% from last week’s USA Network premiere, but was still significantly up from the show’s run on SyFy for the last half of 2015. In fact, the last time the show’s demo rating was this high for a non-live episode (outside of last week) was a 0.73 rating back on June 11th, while last time the viewership was this high was August 20th.
A 15% to 20% fall is fairly normal for scripted television after series or season premieres, though it is worth noting that other wrestling programs that have switched networks have taken longer before falling. TNA iMPACT! Wrestling rose in the second weeks of both its Destination America premiere last January and its Pop TV premiere this year, for example. It’s not a bad number by any stretch; the key is to see whether where the rating goes from here.
SmackDown ranked #5 for the night behind the Republican debate on Fox Business (1.85 demo rating, 11.094 million viewers), two NBA games on TNT (1.24 and 1.07 demo ratings) and Lip Sync Battle on Spike TV (1.04 demo rating).
