WWE News: SmackDown Live Audience Drops This Week (6/26/18)

This week’s edition of Monday Night RAW saw a drop in viewership (find that here) following a three week upward trend and with the numbers in for last night’s episode of SmackDown Live, that trend has become viral this week for WWE programming.

After the past two weeks where viewership for the blue brand increased, last night’s edition that featured Jeff Hardy issuing an open challenge for his United States Championship, as well as Daniel Bryan vs. Harper of The Bludgeon Brothers in the main event with the return of Kane, came in with a 2.135, a new low for the program since October 31st, 2017 when it drew a 2.119. Per usual, it’s not all “doom and gloom” however, as SmackDown Live still ranked at number one in the 18-49 demographic for the Top 150 Cable Rankings. Filling out the 2-5 spots in the top five cable rankings (in order) were Bravo’s Below Deck: Mediterranean, The Haves and Have Nots (Oprah Network), College World Series (ESPN) and Deadliest Catch (Discovery).

Here are the last four weeks of ratings for SmackDown Live:

• June 5th: 2.138
• June 12th: 2.183
• June 19th: 2.315
• June 26th: 2.135

Source: Showbuzz Daily

EA’s Take: Just as I felt about RAW on Monday, we’re further away from Money In The Bank now and a few weeks out from Extreme Rules, plus it’s Summer when things generally die down before heading into SummerSlam in August. SmackDown Live has had a real lack of star power as well (outside of Daniel Bryan). Randy Orton’s on the shelf, AJ Styles hasn’t competed on the blue brand in some time and missed this week entirely to promote the Super-Showdown in Australia (coming in October), plus you had the late removal of Shinsuke Nakamura from his scheduled US Title match due to being bit by a police dog (which is just a crazy story that you can check out here). Certainly that contributes, but quite frankly I didn’t find last night’s show to be anything to write home about either. There are a number of factors that contribute to ratings, but personally I find those two reasons I just mentioned to be the biggest factors. I’d like to see Team Hell No in action next week just to find out if that reunion will help at all, since it was a total surprise last night. Perhaps some promotion of something like that can help out.

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