During its second week against the Winter Olympics, Friday Night SmackDown saw an increase over the prior week.
The February 11th edition of the show averaged 2,231,000 viewers and approximately 730,000 (0.55) in the 18-49 demographic, per Showbuzz Daily and Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.
The show was advertised around Charlotte Flair’s title defense against Naomi that took up the three segments and the final thirty minutes of the program.
Overall viewership increased by four percent while the 18-49 demo figure was up by ten percent over the prior week. It finished third for the night behind NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics and Jeopardy on ABC.
Unlike most weeks, there was minimal NBA competition with the only game on Friday airing on the NBA Network and doing a lower audience than an ESPN game.
There was a notable increase in the 18-34 audience that moved from 206,000 to approximately 260,000 this week or 26 percent. SmackDown finished second in the 18-34 demo behind the Olympics among network programming.
In Canada, the show was hurt by the Winter Olympics, which occupied six of the top ten spots on the sports broadcast chart leading to SmackDown falling out of the top ten programs. The show averaged 118,000 viewers on Sportsnet 360, which was down 19 percent from the previous week.
