Image: WWE
Last night’s SmackDown on Fox averaged 2.153 million viewers in the fast nationals.
That’s up 7.5 percent from last week’s overnight number. Aside from the Christmas night episode that had the benefit of an NFL lead-in, this is the highest overnight viewership for SmackDown since November 20.
The increased viewership allowed Fox to climb out of the basement in terms of the major networks as they beat NBC on the night, which featured the US Figure Skating Championships.
SmackDown drew a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demo, up 20 percent from last week’s overnight number. SmackDown beat everything on network TV with the exception of ABC’s Shark Tank and 20/20 in that demo.
In the 18-34 demo, SmackDown averaged the same 0.3 rating it has the last two weeks. That tied several other shows for the top spot on the networks.
Year-over-year, SmackDown was down 16.6 percent in overnight viewership. It was down 25 percent in 18-49 and 40 percent in 18-34 from the same week last year.
Here’s a look at the last 10 weeks of overnight viewership for SmackDown (note: the December 18 episode aired on FS1):