WWE News: SmackDown Live Rating Goes Up, Stays 2nd In Top 5 (10/9/18)

Ever since their post-SummerSlam episodes, it’s been nothing short of rough showings for WWE’s RAW and SmackDown Live ratings on a weekly basis with numbers seemingly going down for both brand’s each passing week. This week however, the red brand was finally able to turn that around. Could Team Blue do the same?

The numbers for last night are in and SmackDown Live scored a 2.135, up 1.9% from last week. It’s not a big jump, but still a step in the right direction. Here’s a look at the last four weeks of ratings for the blue brand:

• September 18th: 2.281
• September 25th: 2.193
• October 2nd: 2.095
• October 9th: 2.135

Also, while Monday Night RAW has struggled to stay inside the top five of the Cable Top 150 Rankings in the 18-49 demographic, SmackDown Live has found things much easier without weekly competition from Monday Night Football. That being said, this week the blue brand again ranked second, falling behind more MLB Playoff baseball:

1. MLB Playoffs – TBS – 1.92
2. SmackDown Live – USA Network – 0.67
3. Inside The MLB – TBS – 0.60
4. Mayans MC – FX – 0.52
5. The Challenge: Final Reckoning – MTV – 0.49

EA’s Take: Just like Monday Night RAW this week, SmackDown Live capitalizes coming off of Super Show-Down on Saturday to basically hold strong with their numbers from last week. Although, the blue brand doesn’t need to “load up” quite like RAW does just to stand a chance on Tuesday night’s. A slight increase in the ratings, but a small drop in the 18-49 demographic of only .02 for SmackDown on a night with a big MLB Playoff elimination game between the Red Sox and Yankees. It says a lot about not only the popularity of baseball, but also the popularity of the WWE as the brand is able maintain better than nearly any other programming when faced with some of the toughest competition any show could face. Yet, there are still those who buy into ratings as proof that “WWE is a failing product”, proving that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him eat…or something like that.

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