Greg DeMarco’s YouTube Performance Report: WWE Smackdown (4/30/19)

A look at the YouTube performance for the April 30th edition of WWE Smackdown!

As we all know, social media and other outlets have become a huge means of drawing in interaction and viewers for WWE. Most people will point to television ratings like they did during the Monday Night Wars in the late 1990’s, however that can be skewed with so many various means of watching today that do not include cable television. As such, YouTube has joined social media as a metric as important to WWE as television ratings (if not more).

As you’ve become accustomed to, here is this week’s Smackdown YouTube Report, compiled Wednesday night (approximately 24 hours after Smackdown went off the air), for the 4/30/19 edition of WWE Smackdown:

• Matt & Jeff Hardy surrender the Smackdown Tag Team Championships and get attacked by Lars Sullivan – 1.233 million views
• Roman Reigns vs. The B-Team – 915k views
• Roman Reigns promo about punching Vince McMahon – 765k views
• Kevin Owens mocks injured Xavier Woods on The Kevin Owens Show and brawls with Kofi Kingston – 660k views
• Finn Balor & Ali beat Randy Orton & Andrade – 576k views
• Becky Lynch beats Bayley and Charlotte Flair gets involved – 509k views
• Kevin Owens attacks Xavier Woods – 506k views
• Kairi Sane & Asuka beat “Mac & Cheese” – 325k views
• Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville amicably decide who is in the Money In The Bank Ladder Match – 144k views
• Kofi Kingston checks on Xavier Woods – 118k views
• Ember Moon & Carmella discuss Money In The Bank – 116k views
• What does fear mean to Aleister Black? – 93k views

Ratings analysis appears after the ad – buy a shirt!

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Greg DeMarco’s WWE Smackdown YouTube Ratings Analysis

As you already know, WWE Smackdown had a rough night in the TV ratings, finishing 7th in all of cable for the night. Before we see if YouTube was impacted, Let’s take a look at a new comparison I am adding to the ratings each week.

• 4/23 Smackdown Top 5 total: 3.292 million views
• 4/30 Smackdown Top 5 total: 4.149 million views
• 4/23 Smackdown average: 411k views
• 4/30 Smackdown average: 496k views
• 4/23 Smackdown total: 4.5 million views
• 4/30 Smackdown total: 5.9 million views

The Top 5 videos from Smackdown this week pulled in 26% more views than the Top 5 from last week, a difference of 857k views. The overall average for this week’s Smackdown was also 20% higher than last week’s, which was a difference of 84k views per video. Smackdown this week had one more YouTube upload than last week, but this week’s bottom four was equal to or lower than anything from last week. This week’s numbers were also brought down by the Aleister Black pulling in the rare sub-100k views. That sucks for Aleister, who you’ll remember was supposed to be on Raw to begin with! Hopefully they find a meaningful program for him after Money In The Bank.

The “top of the card” wasn’t surprising, due to the intrigue surrounding The Hardys thanks to Jeff Hardy’s injury. The promo where they surrendered the tag team championships (and were attacked by Lars Sullivan once again), led the way. Lars came in third last week, proving that his build is working. The only star more bankable than Lars on YouTube is Roman Reigns, who came in 2nd and 3rd this week after coming in second last week.

Some could try to blame ratings woes on Kofi Kingston as WWE Champion, but Kofi came in first last week and 4th this week (only behind The Hardys announcement and Roman Reigns). Three of the bottom five videos were women, which doesn’t bode well for the changes made in the Superstar Shake-Up. The only other women’s video came in 7th overall, and that was Becky Lynch vs. Bayley. Despite being 7th, Becky pulled in more views this week than last week when she was 4th, but this week had more views overall. For comparison’s sake, Becky came in 3rd on Raw.

Overall, Smackdown’s YouTube performance increased by 1.4 million views overall, more than the TV ratings dropped.

My favorite video… The IIconics on commentary!

What did the YouTube results for this week tell you?