By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

WWE Smackdown on Friday, August 19 scored a 1.83 rating, up slightly compared to the previous two weeks, and below a 1.99 rating on July 29 for Triple H's first appearance as COO.

Smackdown increased ten percent in average viewers, though, compared to last week. Friday's show averaged 2.92 million viewers, which was the most in nearly four months dating back to April 29 for the Smackdown episode following the Draft.

Smackdown's demographic ratings were up across the board compared to last week's show. Smackdown was virtually even with or slightly ahead of the July 29 episode, which scored the highest overall rating in four months at the time.

On cable TV Friday night, Smackdown ranked #9 overall. The show was ranked #1 in males 18-34, males 18-49, males 12-34, and males 12-17. Smackdown's first hour at 8:00 p.m. ESY was #2 for the night among women 18-49.

Caldwell's Analysis: With a live special coming up next week, it's the right time for Smackdown to show improvement and now build momentum after a poor spring-to-summer period.

With Smackdown returning to form as the #1-ranked show on Friday nights in key demographics, it will be interesting to see if Syfy (and WWE) decide to permanently move Smackdown to Tuesday nights in the old ECW/NXT timeslot and give up the strong ratings on Fridays. According to our TV insider, there wouldn't be a scheduling concern, as it would only require Syfy to swap a Tuesday night movie over to Fridays. Also, there isn't as much cable TV competition on Tuesdays compared to other nights of the week. If next Tuesday's experiment goes well, it seems like WWE and Syfy might want to look into this further, especially if Smackdown on Tuesdays could be used as a launching pad for a new Syfy show at 10:00 p.m. after Smackdown.

Also worth considering is WWE's claims of launching new TV shows and/or trying to find a TV home for Superstars and NXT again. If Syfy wants to keep WWE programming in the Friday timeslot, they could experiment with a live Smackdown on Tuesday nights, then insert a new/existing program in the Friday night timeslot that wouldn't draw as high of a rating, but would keep habitual WWE viewers in front of the TV on Friday nights.

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