Friday Night SmackDown returned to Fox with a strong number while AEW Rampage saw a decrease for its Tag Team Battle Royal.
The July 28 edition of Friday Night SmackDown from New Orleans averaged 2,323,000 viewers and 801,000 (0.61) in the 18-49 demographic after a one-week airing on FS 1 the previous week to accommodate women’s soccer on the network. (Data Courtesy: Brandon Thurston at Wrestlenomics)
Compared to the last airing on Fox two weeks prior, SmackDown was largely unchanged with a 1% increase in viewership and 1% drop in the key demo.
Females in the 18-49 demo increased by 7% to 277,000 while men fell by 5% to 524,000.
Adults 18-34 grew by 12% including a gain of 34% among women from two weeks ago.
Adults 35-49 dropped by 7% to 510,000 with males falling by 8% and women dropping by 5% from the July 14 episode on Fox. It was SmackDown’s lowest audience in the 35-49 demo since June 9.
In Canada, SmackDown saw a sizable decrease with viewership of 140,000 and 49,600 in the 25-54 demographic, which is down from 228,900 and 105,200 respectively previous week and was SmackDown’s lowest viewership in Canada since June 9. The show still ranked fourth on Friday among sports programming, which was led by the CFL game between Hamilton and Ottawa but doesn’t account for the Toronto Blue Jays game that aired exclusively on Apple TV on Friday night.
AEW Rampage dropped to one of its lowest audiences in its normal time slot, ever.
The July 28 show averaged 324,000 viewers and 128,000 in the 18-49 demographic, which are down 22% and 11% from last week on TNT.
In the Friday at 10 p.m. ET time slot, the only episode that drew a lower audience was two weeks ago on July 14.
In the 18-49 demo, males dropped by 32% to 67,000 while females grew by 36% to 61,000.
This was the trend across the board with male viewership down significantly while female viewers grew from the week prior.
Adults 18-34 saw males drop by 47% while females more than doubled going from 11,000 last week to 24,000.
Adults 35-54 saw a 25% decline among male viewers but a 12% increase with females.
The show was promoted around a Tag Team Battle Royal for a title shot and was won by Brian Cage & Big Bill with the show headlined by Hikaru Shida beating Nyla Rose to secure a title shot against Toni Storm at Dynamite 200 this week.
