Post-WWE Royal Rumble 2019 SmackDown Live Sees Ratings Decrease
It was a really good show as well, you know...
Jan 31, 2019
It appears that four nights of stellar wrestling action is just too much for a wider audience to stomach, as the SmackDown Live that closed the 2019 Royal Rumble weekend saw a ratings decrease compared to last week's episode.
Expectations were high heading into Tuesday night after happenings on Raw the night before. 2019 Women's Royal Rumble winner Becky Lynch showed up unexpectedly to announce that she would be challenging Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania, and the hype from that was expected to spill over to SD Live.
SmackDown averaged 2,137,000 viewers this week, which is down from the 2,142,000 viewers that saw last week's show - this put the blue brand ninth for the night on cable, but around 15 per cent down compared to the post-2018 Rumble show.
SmackDown retained 79 per cent of Raw's audience from the night before, which is lower than usual. It's also worth noting that a lot of other networks were showing reruns, which normally sees a ratings increase for live WWE shows.
Here's what the ratings look like for SmackDown Live so far in 2019:
- 01/01/19: 2,091,000
- 08/01/19: 2,032,000
- 15/01/19: 2,143,000
- 22/01/19: 2,142,000
- 29/01/19: 2,137,000