Smackdown viewership data minute by minute trends and quarter hour averages for both empty venue matches and pre-taped Chamber match

PWTorch has obtained a detailed minute-by-minute detail of viewership for WWE Friday Night Smackdown last week held in the WWE Performance Center without fans, which included a replay of the entire Men’s Tag Team Elimination match.

The opening minutes seven minutes of the show drew more than 3 million (over 3.1 million to start), but it trailed off gradually to as low as 2.3 million at minute 11, but mostly hovered in the 2.5 to 2.7 million range.

For comparison purposes, the Feb. 28 episode of Smackdown opened with 3.0 million viewers and stayed above 3.0 million for the first eight minutes, then dropped as low as 2.5 million and averaged 2.9 million in Q1. So this week’s Smackdown started roughly 100,000 above the level from two weeks early for a “normal show” and ended with virtually same average for the first 15 minutes (within 50K out of over 2.8 million).

The quarter hour viewership numbers were as follows:

Q1: 2.8M

Q2: 2.6 M

Q3: 2.5 M

Q4: 2.4 M

Q5: 2.5 M (end of Chamber match)

Q6: 2.5 M (Cesaro-Bryan)

Q7: 2.2 M (Corbin-Jeff Hardy – this segment had two commercial breaks, driving down the average)

Q8: 2.4 M (Cena-Fiend angle)

What this shows is not a lot of movement as the show progressed, and it’s vital to keep in mind a quarter hour with more than one commercial break can bring down that quarter’s average and shouldn’t reflect on the drawing power of the wrestlers in that quarter. These numbers show curiosity at the start followed by a drop-off, but a largely steady viewership. The replay of the Elimination Chamber did slightly better than the other segments that followed, but not enough to be a big driver of doing more or less of anything they presented on the show.

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