Smackdown Rating: Has post-WrestleMania and post-Shake-up ratings slide finally ended? (w/Keller’s Analysis)

Last night’s episode of WWE Smackdown drew a 1.60 rating, down from the 1.62 last week and well below the 1.84 average for the year headed into this week and the 1.83 ten week rolling average headed into this week. The rating is barely above last year’s rating this week of 1.59. The last time Smackdown drew two ratings in a row below 1.7 was the end of October and start of November during the peak of the U.S. election season.

Viewership this week was 2.348 million.

Keller’s Analysis: Given the emphasis WWE has put on Smackdown this year, adding “Live” to the title and moving them to Tuesday nights and airing live, anything close to or below last year’s rating is a sign of erosion. As I often mention, though, Raw well below 2016 averages, so even if Smackdown holds even, that’s a bit of a victory compared to where they likely would have been as a pretaped show on Thursday or Fridays sharing talent with Raw and having the vibe of featuring secondary angles and matches and leftovers from Raw.