WWE Draft SmackDown beats Monday's Raw in viewership
The SmackDown draft show, the first of the now-weekly Tuesday live shows, did 3.17 million viewers, which would be the best SmackDown rating since it moved to the USA Network.
The rating was up from the 2.0 to 2.3 million that the show was doing on Tuesdays, but that was expected. The number was very slightly ahead of the 3.13 million viewers Raw did the night prior, but it figured to be since the show had been hyped for weeks and was considered the most important television show in months.
The show placed sixth for the night on cable, trailing only news shows on Fox News and beat repeat programming on ABC, as well as FOX and CW head-to-head, as well as CNN. More eyes were on USA for SmackDown during the two hours than any stations other than CBS, NBC and Fox News.
In the 18-49 demo, SmackDown was the top rated show on cable and delivered far more male viewers in particular than the show had been doing on Thursdays when SmackDown of late had the highest concentration of female viewers of any WWE wrestling-based television show.
The number wasn't unexpectedly high, but the question is how well it maintains and what the regular number for a non-special show turns out to be.
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Edit: Added the rating.
WWE Smackdown rating: Final numbers for the July 19 WWE Draft episode – Pro Wrestling Dot Net
Tuesday’s WWE Smackdown Live scored a 2.2 rating, up from the 1.56 rating the show drew last Thursday. As previously noted, the show averaged 3.170 million viewers, up from last week’s 2.068 million viewers.
Powell’s POV: The WWE Draft edition of Smackdown Live topped the 3.133 million viewers that Raw drew on Monday. The July 23, 2015 Smackdown delivered a 1.79 rating with 2.35 million viewers.