Following last Tuesday's SmackDown, which had the lowest audience of 2018, this week's total fell even further.
The show averaged 2.293 million viewers on the USA Network, down six percent from last week. It was the lowest non-holiday number for SmackDown since June 13th of last year.
As will be the case for the next several weeks, SmackDown was up against heavy competition from the NBA playoffs as the Houston Rockets vs. Utah Jazz game airing directly opposite the show did 4.082 million viewers on TNT. They were also up against a heavily-publicized NCIS episode, which did over 15 million viewers in the 8-9 p.m. hour.
In a tough night for competition on cable, SmackDown finished just 10th in the total viewers category and fourth in the 18-49 demo with a 0.71 rating. As a comparison, the show's 18-49 rating was approaching 1.0 prior to WrestleMania.
The episode did retain over 85 percent of Raw's audience from the previous night, although SmackDown viewership was down two percent from the same week last year.
Here's a look at the last 10 weeks of SmackDown ratings as compared to Raw's from the same week:
