Smackdown Rating Climbs to Six-Month High

– The Road to WrestleMania is officially underway and that meant good things for Smackdown’s ratings, which hit a six-month high this week. Tuesday’s episode brought in a 1.02 rating in the 18 – 49 demographic and 2.817 million viewers, up 19% and 10% from last week’s 0.86 demo rating and 2.556 million. The numbers represent the highest for the show since its live Tuesday debut, which was bolstered not only by the much-hyped move but also the WWE Draft.

The numbers are also up significantly from the post-Rumble episode last year — not a surprise, since ratings have generally been up comparatively since moving to a live Tuesday format, but it’s also worth mentioning that last week was only a month after it had made its move from SyFy to USA, which resulted in a big ratings bump off signficant interest that didn’t wane until mid-March.

Smackdown ranked #1 among cable originals for the night per Showbuzz Daily, beating out HSN’s Fixer Upper (0.87 demo rating, 3.707 million viewers) for the top spot.