WWE SmackDown ratings about even with last week

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com
By Paul Fontaine | @PaulAceFontaine | Jan 18, 2018 9:05 am

Tuesday night's SmackDown averaged 2.602 million viewers on the USA Network, essentially even with last week's 2.603 million.

The show was seventh for the night on cable in terms of total viewers but second in the 18-49 demo with a 0.78 rating, trailing only Curse of Oak Island on the History Channel.

For the first time in 2018, SmackDown was down year-over-year as the show one year ago this week did 2.652 million viewers.

The audience retention from Monday's big Raw number was not up to the usual level -- as SmackDown kept just over 80 percent of Raw's viewers this week, the lowest such number since the Halloween night episode.

It's notable that SmackDown ratings had been up since AJ Styles won the WWE Championship and since the main event storylines have revolved around Styles, Shane McMahon, Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, and Sami Zayn. This week, there was virtually no advancement in that storyline. Owens and Zayn didn't appear and Style only did a brief interview segment.

The episode instead revolved around the semifinals and finals of the United States title tournament and featured Jinder Mahal wrestling for almost 40 minutes.