Slight Dip In WWE SmackDown Overnight Ratings
WWE had stiff competition from the NBA finals on Friday night.
This week's Friday Night SmackDown on FOX suffered a slight dip in overnight viewership, according to Showbuzz Daily.
After landing a final average viewership of 2.110 million for last week's Clash of Champions go-home edition of the blue brand, the most recent episode of SmackDown's overnight average saw a drop of 3.2% to 2.043 million. The show also slipped to fourth in the always important 18-49 demographic, scoring a rating of 0.55, on a night which saw WWE battling against the NBA finals for eyes on their product.
Friday's show saw Roman Reigns and Jey Uso all but confirm a titanic clash inside of Hell in a Cell at the upcoming titular PPV. Elsewhere on the episode, 'The Fiend' attacked Kevin Owens and officially joined forces with Alexa Bliss, and Sami Zayn successfully defended his newly won Undisputed Intercontinental Championship - via exposed turnbuckle - against the former champ Jeff Hardy.
SmackDown has consistently produced seriously watchable and massively entertaining shows for the last few months now, becoming arguably WWE's top weekly programme when it comes to storylines and in-ring quality. Hopefully this excellent work will be rewarded by an increase in ratings over the coming weeks.