Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/28/smackdown-hits-lowest-viewership-of-2020-on-overnight-numbers/
Despite the show posting its best number of 2020 last week, Friday Night SmackDown fell this week to its lowest of the year based on the overnight figures.
The overnight number has SmackDown averaging 2,374,000 viewers on Fox with the final number coming out Tuesday to reflect the entire country.
The show did 0.7 in the 18-49 demographic that trails Shark Tank, Hawaii Five-O, and MacGyver and equal to 20/20 on ABC. SmackDown also did a 0.14 in the 18-34 demo.
In total viewers, SmackDown was least-watched prime time show on the major four networks on Friday night.
It follows a consistent trend this week with Raw and NXT doing lower viewership at a time when the theory would be more people having free time and watching fresh content.
Friday’s episode was taped this past weekend in the lead-up to WrestleMania 36.
Last week’s episode of SmackDown was their most-watched episode of the year with 2,569,000 viewers and featured an appearance by Rob Gronkowski and a contract signing involving Bill Goldberg and Roman Reigns.
They are promoting a ‘face-to-face’ confrontation between Goldberg and Reigns for next week. The company has yet to acknowledge the match isn’t happening, which should be explained next week. The episode will also feature John Cena answering Bray Wyatt’s challenge for their ‘Firefly Fun House’ match stipulation at WrestleMania.