Friday’s live edition of WWE SmackDown, the go-home show for Hell In a Cell with the final build for the pay-per-view, drew an average of 881,000 viewers on FS1, according to Showbuzz Daily.
Friday’s show aired on FS1 for one night only due to MLB World Series coverage on FOX.
This number is obviously down from last week’s final viewership of 2.124 million viewers for the SmackDown on FOX season two episode.
SmackDown ranked #15 for the night on cable in the key 18-49 demographic, with a 0.25 rating. The show ranked #56 for the night in viewership. Gold Rush topped the Cable Top 150 chart with a 0.43 rating in the key 18-49 demographic, drawing just 2.048 million viewers. Tucker Carlson Tonight topped the night on cable in viewership with 4.796 million viewers, ranking #2 on the Cable Top 150 with a 0.38 rating in the key demo.
To compare, the October 28, 2019 SmackDown episode also aired on FS1 due to World Series coverage on FOX. That episode drew 888,000 viewers and a 0.27 rating in the 18-49 demographic, ranking #9 on the Cable Top 150 for the night and #18 for the night on cable in viewership.
FOX topped the night on network TV with their MLB World Series coverage, which shows why the choose to preempt SmackDown. The World Series Game 3 topped the night in viewership with 8.156 million viewers. The World Series game also dominated the network TV ratings with a 2.0 in the key 18-49 demographic, a 2.4 in the 25-54 demo, and a 1.5 rating in the 18-34 demographic.
Friday’s SmackDown drew a 0.25 rating in the key 18-49 demographic on cable, a 0.30 rating in the 25-54 demo, and a 0.13 rating in the 18-34 demographic. Last week’s episode on network TV drew a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demo, a 0.7 rating in the 25-54 demo, and a 0.3 rating in the 18-34 demographic. These numbers are about irrelevant as cable demo ratings are always higher than network TV.
