Friday Night SmackDown fell in viewership for the episode following WrestleMania Backlash.
The May 13th edition of the show from Wilkes-Barre a.k.a. “The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” averaged 1,893,000 viewers and approximately 522,000 (0.40) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
AEW Rampage, Friday at 5:30pm on TNT:
340,000 viewers
P18-49: 0.12 (157,000)WWE Smackdown, 8-10pm on Fox:
1,893,000 viewers
P18-49: 0.40 (522,000)📊 https://t.co/1SscdBCpr8 pic.twitter.com/RRM9afREhv
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) May 16, 2022
Overall viewership fell four percent from the previous week, making Friday’s episode its lowest number since July 2, 2021, during the ThunderDome era. The 18-49 audience dropped by 13 percent and was the lowest over the past two weeks.
SmackDown finished second among network programming behind ABC’s Shark Tank in the 18-48 demo with WWE ranking first in 18-34 despite a 20.5 percent decline from last week in that demo.
The cable numbers were dominated by the NBA playoffs with SmackDown airing against Boston vs. Milwaukee that averaged 5.5 million viewers and 1.83 in 18-49 while also airing against NHL playoff games on TNT and TBS.
In Canada, SmackDown was moved to OLN due to the NHL playoffs and averaged approximately 53,000 viewers outside of the top ten sports programs that day. It was up significantly from last week’s episode on OLN that only did 29,000 viewers.
The show featured RK-Bro appearing on the program to challenge The Usos for a title unification, an unadvertised title defense by Ronda Rousey against Raquel Rodriguez, and Sasha Banks & Naomi defending the Women’s Tag Team Championship against Natalya & Shayna Baszler.
This week’s episode of SmackDown is advertising a tag title unification match between RK-Bro and The Usos.
