The television viewership numbers are in for the second week of WWE SmackDown on the USA Network, and the show lost over 400,000 viewers compared to the audience it drew for their first show on the network last week. The January 14th SmackDown drew 2.332 million viewers; last week's January 7th debut episode on USA had a viewership number of 2.757 million. While the roster for the show was thin this week due to half of WWE's crew going to India for a live event tour, I'm not sure how much that fact can be used for an excuse when it comes to the big drop in viewership this week. It's not as though the average fan knew who was and was not going to be on the show going into the broadcast on Thursday evening. This week's SmackDown featured Alberto Del Rio inexplicably winning the U.S. Championship back from Kalisto just three days after Kalisto won the belt on RAW (well, actually just one day later, as the show was taped on Tuesday). The main event of the show was Kevin Owens and Sheamus wrestling Dean Ambrose and Neville to a double count-out finish. WWE hoped to improve the importance of SmackDown as a crucial show in their storylines when it moved to the USA Network. Despite the championship change on the show this week, SmackDown still came off as an after thought rather than must-see television. The viewership numbers this week reflect that belief. SmackDown finished as the sixth most watched show on cable television Thursday night, trailing the Republican Presidential Debate, Cavuto Coast To Coast (following the debate), The O'Reilly Factor (prior to the debate), and two NBA basketball games, The show drew a final cable broadcast rating of 1.68. This was also down from last week's show which drew a 1.93 rating.
