WWE SmackDown viewership under one million viewers for third straight week
Image: WWE
Last Friday’s WWE SmackDown on USA averaged 943,000 viewers, down 2.6% from the previous week and the lowest audience for the show since Halloween of last year.
It’s also the third straight week the show has done under one million viewers which has never happened since the show’s inception.
The Friday, January 23 show averaged a 0.22 rating in the 18-49 demo, up 4.5% from the prior week but tying the third lowest rating the show has done since the Halloween episode. The episode topped the night’s cable charts in the key demo.
There was also more sports competition than usual. An NHL game aired head-to-head on ESPN and finished second on the cable charts with a 0.21 18-49 rating while college basketball on Fox also aired head-to-head and topped all television with a 0.37 average 18-49 rating.
As compared to the same week in 2025 when Nielsen was still using its previous reporting method, overall viewership was down 35.2% while the 18-49 rating was down 50%.
Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo ratings for WWE SmackDown on USA as well as the 10-week average in both categories.
Of note this week’s show was down 14.9% in overall viewers and 15.4% in 18-49 as compared to recent averages.
| Date | 18-49 | Total viewers |
| 11/14/2025 | 0.27 | 1,158,000 |
| 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 |
| 10-week average | 0.26 | 1,107,900 |
