WWE Smackdown loses two-thirds of its viewership on FS1 when bumped from Fox last Friday for the World Series

WWE Friday Night Smackdown move to FS1 last week because of the World Series game bumping it from its usual Fox home and in the process, it lost two-thirds of its viewers. Despite heavy advertising letting viewers know about the move, only 888,000 watched. That’s lower than the number who watched AEW two days earlier on TNT. AEW aired a replay of Dynamite on TNT opposite of Smackdown, and it drew 255,000 viewers. A certain portion of those viewers surely would have watched Smackdown on FS1 instead had AEW and TNT not offered the replay, so that added to the drop in usual viewership.

The cable rating on FS1 was 0.65 among live and same-night-DVR viewers; Smackdown had been drawing just above 1.50 ratings on USA before it moved to Fridays on Fox. The drop-off among 18-34 year old male viewers was around two-thirds, whereas the drop-off among 18-49 year olds was just over one-half, so the slightly older adult male demo was more likely to follow Smackdown to FS1 than younger adult male viewers.

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