SmackDown Live's Audience Nearly Equal to Raw

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Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2017/12/28/smackdown-lives-audience-nearly-equal-to-raw/

Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live drew an average of 2,656,000 viewers on the USA Network.

It was the WWE’s second consecutive night of television from the Allstate Arena in Chicago and aired the night after a live edition of Raw on Christmas Night.

The USA Network utilized the same strategy as Raw with the first hour of SmackDown Live also airing commercial free. This resulted in a 3% increase in the SmackDown Live audience from the prior week and was its highest number since November 28th.

This week saw Raw and SmackDown audiences at near identical marks with Raw averaging 2.69 million viewers (albeit airing on a much tougher night with the holiday) and SmackDown Live only 1.3% lower.

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Dang, I was hoping both numbers would tank severely to repimand WWE for making their talent work Christmas and Stephen’s Day. No excuse for not doing a taped show or best of. Just air some of WrestleMania like previous years.

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Spot on, Jay. I don’t watch WWE week-to-week outside of NXT, but I absolutely would watch a ‘Year In Review/Best Of…’ in place of RAW & Smackdown at Christmas.

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They have always done taped shows in the past. I don’t think a taped show would have hurt ratings on Monday at all. Terrible for all the families.

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So…the NFL and NBA should get the same grief for
doing the same right?

Also the building was sold out two days in a row, shows that the company was right.