SmackDown Viewership Down This Week For March 16 Show, Due To Stiff Competition From Unexpected Source
The most recent episode of SmackDown, which featured a lot of drama surrounding AJ Styles and Shane McMahon building toward a match at WrestleMania 33, drew 2.628 million viewers, according to Show Buzz Daily. This is a 4% descrease from last week's 2.738 million viewers.
SmackDown came in at #7 for viewership on cable for the night, behind The Rachel Maddow Show, Fixer Upper, The O'Reilly Factor, Tucker Carlson, The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell, and Hannity. SmackDown was #2 in the 18-49 demographic, behind only The Rachel Maddow Show. Maddow likely came in at #1 because she unexpectedly released two pages of Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns, promoting it heavily for the two hours preceding her broadcast.
By contrast, Monday's episode of RAW drew 3.232 million viewers, which is an increase from the previous week's 3.216 million viewers.
Ratings were delayed this week because of an outage at a Nielsen data center over the weekend.
