WWE SmackDown viewership gets major jump after latest Nielsen changes
Image: WWE
Last Friday’s WWE SmackDown averaged 1.26 million viewers on USA, up 34% from the previous week and the highest reported audience for the show since September 19, 2025.
However, it’s important to note that effective January 26, Nielsen once again changed the way they are measuring viewership with the Big Data+Panel system and audience totals for all wrestling shows have seen a marked increase since then.
The Royal Rumble go-home edition of the show, SmackDown topped the cable charts with a 0.29 rating in the 18-49 demo, up 32% from last week’s reported number and tying the highest rating the show has done in that category since September 26, 2025.
As compared to the same week in 2025 when Nielsen was using the Panel only measurement system, overall viewership was down 20.2% while the 18-49 rating was down 43.1%.
Recent WWE SmackDown ratings & viewership
The following are the last 11 weeks of overall SmackDown viewership and 18-49 demo ratings as well as the 10-week average in both categories.
| Date | 18-49 | Total viewers |
| 11/21/2025 | 0.29 | 1,210,000 |
| 11/28/2025 | 0.28 | 1,142,000 |
| 12/5/2025 | 0.24 | 1,063,000 |
| 12/12/2025 | 0.26 | 1,240,000 |
| 12/19/2025 | 0.21 | 995,000 |
| 12/26/2025 | 0.27 | 1,138,000 |
| 1/2/2026 | 0.28 | 1,175,000 |
| 1/9/2026 | 0.26 | 990,000 |
| 1/16/2026 | 0.21 | 968,000 |
| 1/23/2026 | 0.22 | 943,000 |
| 1/29/2026 | 0.29 | 1,260,000 |
| 10-week average (through 1/23) | 0.25 | 1,086,400 |
