WWE topped by Fox News among top-line brands

2015 year-end data is beginning to come in showing where WWE ranks among other big brands in the entertainment field. Two big metrics show Fox News topped WWE at the top-line.

– Social media data from Shareablee shows Fox News was #1 and WWE was #2 from January to November of this year.

Fox News, which generated interest covering the ramp-up of U.S. Presidential campaigning, had 205.7 million “Facebook actions,” followed by WWE with 202.7 million.

Rounding out the Top 5 were Men’s Humor, MTV, and Fox Deportes. (Broadcasting & Cable Report)

– Another key metric is TV viewership. USA Network fell to #3 in the yearly rankings, trailing ESPN and Fox News. This was mainly due to WWE Raw’s sharp downturn in viewership.

For the period that counts as year-end, USA was down 16 percent from an average of 2.143 million prime time viewers to 1.804 million viewers.

ESPN averaged 2.114 million and Fox News averaged 1.838 million to top USA.

USA also fell 20 percent in the adults 18-49 demographic year-over-year. USA ranked #3 behind ESPN and TBS in the a18-49 demo. (Deadline.com Report)

However, as Deadline noted in their report, USA is being propped up by Raw, despite Raw’s sharp 2015 downturn, because Raw is 52 weeks per year delivering above-average compared to the rest of the prime time programming.

USA hopes adding Smackdown will help prop up the network’s yearly average with another 52 weeks of first-run programming.

If Smackdown can draw 2.0 million viewers consistently on Thursday nights, it will help USA contend for the top spot again. Or, at the very least, get them back to 2.0 million average prime time viewers, as long as Raw does not fall any further in 2016.