WWE SmackDown ratings down slightly despite lack of competition

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Paul Fontaine | @PaulAceFontaine | Jul 3, 2019 2:42 pm

Despite the fact that Monday Night Raw this week had a healthy increase in the ratings, last night's SmackDown did not follow suit. The show averaged 1.89 million viewers on the USA Network, down two percent from last week.

This resulted in just a 75 percent audience retention from Monday night, one of the lowest marks since SmackDown moved to Tuesdays in July 2016.

It was a down night overall on cable, with SmackDown finishing in its usual eighth place overall in terms of total cable TV viewers, trailing only news-related programming. SmackDown also finished solidly atop the ratings in the 18.49 demo with a 0.56 rating, 27 percent higher than Chrisley Knows Best, which follows SmackDown on USA.

This being the first week of July may have played a part in the low number. Tuesday's episode only dropped six percent year-over-year, much better than SmackDown has been doing. Not so coincidentally, the audience retention for the July 3, 2018 SmackDown was only 74 percent of the previous night's Raw episode.