SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Last night’s episode of WWE Smackdown Live on USA Network drew a 1.60 rating, the same the week before WrestleMania and below the prior two weeks (1.69, 1.65). That means Smackdown got zero post-WrestleMania ratings bump.
To put that in perspective, last year Smackdown drew a 2.10 on the post-WrestleMania edition, which was u from the 1.74 of the prior week. Two years ago, Smackdown drew a 2.14 rating, up from the 2.02 the week before.
This could be a result of a backlash against the end of Raw the night before when The Bar interrupted the Kofi Kingston vs. Seth Rollins “title vs. title” main event. It also could be a result of both Kofi and Becky Lynch already appearing on Raw, taking away the novelty of seeing their first post-WM title victory appearances.
In any case, a deeply disappointing rating… which was still good enough to top cable ratings for the night in the key 18-49 demographic. Smackdown drew a 0.8 rating in the key demo, ahead of “Curse of Oak Island” on History Network which drew a 0.7 rating and “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” on Bravo which drew a 0.6 rating.
The second episode of “Miz & Mrs” this season finished no. 5 in the demo rating with a 0.4, tied with three other shows with 997,000 viewers, a drop of just over half of Smackdown’s total 2.199 million viewers.
Two shows on cable drew more than 3 million total viewers (“Curse of Oak Island” on History and “Hannity” on Fox News), and another drew more than 2.5 million (“The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC)
Maybe nobody really cares about Smackdown anymore. Lacey Evans is hardly an exciting opponent for Becky and after watching The Hardy Boys get totally embarrassed and buried by Lars Sullivan I was so disgusted I was ready to give up for the night. I sure hope this shakeup makes changes but the terrible booking and writing will continue and so will the burials of lots of good talent. I do not like Lars Sullivan at all and he should be going over jobbers only. I was also disgusted with how Carmella was treated as an afterthought and her big WM win was treated as nothing special at all. I can see why the ratings suck. I am surprised Fox is paying so much money for a show with such piss poor writing.