WWE SmackDown Suffers Massive Ratings Drop

WWE SmackDown Suffers Massive Ratings Drop - Back Under 2 Million Viewers

How do you lose 250,000 people in a week? Ask Vince McMahon!

WWE.com

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Despite having a solid show from a creative and in-ring viewpoint, this week’s WWE SmackDown Live suffered a massive drop in ratings.

With the official numbers now in – via ShowBuzzDaily – last night’s SmackDown averaged 1.91 million viewers. To give some perspective on that figure, that’s a drop of 250,000 people from last week’s outing for WWE’s blue brand.

Yes, SmackDown Live lost a quarter of a million viewers in the space of a week.

While that figure in itself is a scary one for WWE brass, even worse is the jaw-dropping fact that this week’s SmackDown Live is down 490,000 viewers from this time last year.

The latest edition of SmackDown Live reportedly underwent a complete rewrite – at Vince McMahon’s order – just hours before the show was due to start, although the episode itself was largely a very good one.

Ahead of time, WWE heavily promoted Trish Stratus’ return on a special episode of King’s Court, Finn Balor was to face off against Dolph Ziggler, and The OC would do battle against The New Day. But clearly, none of these segments and matches were enough to bring in strong viewership numbers.

With SmackDown’s move to FOX looming large this October, this latest rating number is a worrying figure for both WWE and, more importantly, for FOX.

By skunty empire