Image: WWE
Friday’s Christmas night episode of SmackDown had an average of 3.336 million viewers on Fox at fast nationals, the largest audience for a WWE show since Fox’s debut episode of SmackDown in October last year.
That total was undoubtedly reinforced by the NFL, which broadcast an afternoon game on Fox leading to SmackDown. SmackDown also started a little late due to NFL coverage going to the 8 pm Eastern time.
Last night’s SmackDown was recorded in advance and featured three title fights. Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens’ steel cage match for the Universal Championship opened the show. In the main event, Big E defeated Sami Zayn in a woodcutter fight to win the Intercontinental title. Women’s doubles champions Asuka and Charlotte Flair made their first title defense, facing Sasha Banks & Bianca Belair and Bayley & Carmella in a three-threat elimination fight.
The first hour of last night’s show had an average of 4.097 million viewers. The second hour fell 37% to 2.574 million.
Final numbers will not be available until Tuesday due to holidays. If the final audience gets close to holding, this will be the most viewed SmackDown since Fox’s debut, which had 3.888 million viewers.
In demo 18-49, SmackDown got a rating of 0.95 with hours of 1.1 and 0.8, respectively. That was behind the NBA at ABC, which averaged 1.1 in three hours, but surpassed everything on open TV.
In 18-34, SmackDown got a rating of 0.65, behind the NBA’s 0.87, but ahead of everything on the networks.
The general audience, which almost always ranks last on the networks, was behind the basketball game, but outperformed everything else on the networks, which were just repeated programming.