SmackDown Christmas Broadcast Draws Highest FOX Audience in Over a Year, Ratings Up

– Yesterday was a holiday, and it was also a good night for WWE’s numbers on FOX. Last night’s special Christmas Day edition of Friday Night SmackDown saw pretty significant increase in its overall numbers. Showbuzz Daily has the overnight ratings for last night’s Christmas edition of SmackDown. The FOX Network broadcast had an average overnight audience of 3.335 million viewers. That’s based off of 4.097 million viewers for Hour 1 and 2.574 million viewers for Hour 2.

That’s a major boost from last week, since the Dec. 18 episode of SmackDown aired on FS1. That show had a final viewership of 1.030 million viewers.

The last episode to air on FOX on December 11 drew a final audience of 2.206 million viewers. This is the first SmackDown on FOX broadcast to average more than three million viewers since the show debuted on the network on October 4, 2019. That show drew 3.869 million viewers.

Last night’s number is the second-biggest audience for WWE on the FOX Network. This is also the single largest broadcast audience for a WWE show in 2020.

Ratings in the key P18-49 demographic were also significantly up. The show averaged a 0.95 rating in the key demo, well up from last week’s FS1 broadcast, which had an average rating of 0.3 in the same demographic. The last FOX Network broadcast for SmackDown drew a 0.6 rating in the key demo.

Last night’s show featured three major title matches, with Roman Reigns defending the Universal title against Kevin Owens in a Steel Cage Match. Asuka and Charlotte Flair defended their WWE women’s tag team titles against Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair. Also, Big E beat Sami Zayn to capture the Intercontinental title.

The NBA game on ABC topped the ratings and overall viewership for the evening. However, the first hour of SmackDown drew the highest audience for any show on primetime network TV last night.