Image: WWE
Fast national ratings for last night’s Royal Rumble go-home edition of SmackDown on Fox saw the show averaged 2.228 million viewers, down 2.4 percent from last week’s overnight number.
This was still the fourth-best overnight viewership for SmackDown since April.
The show opened by averaging 2.294 million viewers in hour one but dropped almost six percent in hour two, which is unusual for SmackDown. It could be that there was less of Roman Reigns on this episode. Reigns only appeared in an interview segment with Kevin Owens that began near the end of the first hour.
Fox finished last among the major networks in total viewers with every other network averaging at least 3.2 million for the night. ABC’s 20/20 was the next lowest show besides SmackDown, averaging just under 2.7 million viewers.
SmackDown did lead all of the networks in the 18-49 demo. It drew a 0.6 rating in that category, matching last week’s overnight number.
In the 18-34 demo, SmackDown drew a 0.3 rating, which also matched last week’s overnight number and led all network programming.
Year-over-year, SmackDown was down 7.9 percent in total viewers. It also dropped 14.3 percent in 18-49 and 40 percent in 18-34, meaning the show is skewing a lot older than it was last year at this time.
Final ratings for the show will be out on Monday. Last week’s SmackDown averaged 2.383 million viewers in the final ratings.
Here’s a look at the last 10 weeks of overnight viewership and key demo ratings for SmackDown (note: the December 18 episode aired on FS1):