Smackdown Rating: The battle royal for a WrestleMania main event title shot gives viewership a bump, perspective compared to last year (w/Keller’s Analysis)

Tuesday night’s Smackdown (2/21) drew a 1.96 rating, up from the  1.80 the previous two weeks and in line with 2.00 from three weeks ago. It’s above the rolling ten week average headed into this week of 1.85 and the 2017 average of 1.86. Compared to a year ago, it’s up from a 1.74 rating. Viewership was 2.792 million.

Keller’s Analysis: The Battle Royal seems to have given a bump to Smackdown viewership. The move to Tuesdays live on USA Network from being pre-taped and airing on delay has helped ratings. They averaged 1.81 a year ago this far into 2016 compared to 1.86 this year. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s bucking a trend that has taken a chunk out of Raw viewership, which was way down from 2016 numbers. So Smackdown would likely be way down instead of a little up if not for the move to live on Tuesdays with an exclusive roster.