WWE SmackDown ratings nearly equal Raw's for final week of 2017

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Paul Fontaine | @PaulAceFontaine | Dec 28, 2017 7:39 am

Tuesday night's SmackDown on the USA Network averaged 2,656,000 viewers, which was up three percent from last week and nearly matched Raw's ratings on Christmas Day the night before.

SmackDown finished a higher-than-usual third for the night on cable and first in the 18-49 demo with a 0.82 rating. For the second straight week, SmackDown was down year-over-year as the December 27th, 2016 episode featured the return of John Cena on a stacked show. That episode is still the only show to beat Raw since the WWE draft edition of SmackDown that kicked off the brand split.

SmackDown finished 2017 averaging 2.546 million viewers per week, up slightly from the 2016 average of 2.487 million for the live shows that started in July of that year. The 2017 average for those same five months was almost identical to the year-end average, coming in at 2.541 million. As a comparison, Raw numbers were down an average of 5.1 percent.