Friday Night SmackDown sets its highest viewership mark in over one year while AEW Rampage crashed to its lowest figures.
The April 5 episode of SmackDown from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia averaged 2,603,000 viewers and 1,015,000 (0.77) in the 18-49 demographic, ranking as the top network program for the night but finished behind the two NCAA basketball games, according to Programming Insider.
Iowa vs. UConn averaged 13.9 million viewers while the South Carolina vs. NC State game averaged 6.9 million viewers on ESPN against Friday night’s WWE and AEW programming. The Iowa vs. UConn game was the most-watched women’s game in history until Sunday’s final.
SmackDown saw an eighteen percent viewership increase over the prior week and its largest audience since December 30, 2022, for an episode featuring John Cena teaming with Kevin Owens against Roman Reigns & Sami Zayn.
The show’s core demo audience grew twenty-eight percent this week, and was its largest number since December 25, 2020, for an episode following the NFL.
Last year’s show going into WrestleMania weekend averaged 2,373,000 viewers and 866,000 (0.66) in the 18-49 demographic.
In Canada, SmackDown averaged 299,300 viewers and 129,600 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 and was the show’s largest audience in the country since March 31, 2023, heading into WrestleMania 39. The show ranked fourth among sports programming on Friday and second in the demo behind the Iowa vs. UConn game.
AEW Rampage averaged 273,000 viewers and 100,000 (0.08) in the 18-49 demographic, which is the show’s lowest ever for an episode in its regular timeslot, per Wrestlenomics.
The audience fell by twenty-four percent while the 18-49 audience experienced a decline of twenty-seven percent airing against the Iowa vs. UConn game and faced additional pro wrestling competition with the WWE Hall of Fame and the ROH Supercard of Honor event.
