WWE SmackDown Rises to Just Below Two Million Viewers for FOX Return

– SpoilerTV as the preliminary ratings and viewership numbers for last Friday’s edition of WWE SmackDown on FOX. Last Friday’s show saw SmackDown return to the FOX Network for the post-Survivor Series fallout episode. SmackDown had previously aired on FS1 the previous week.

The December 1 live broadcast averaged 1.952 million viewers. The viewership rose from November 24’s 789,000 viewers for the FS1 broadcast. For comparison, the final audience for the last live FOX TV broadcast was 2.206 million viewers. The overnight preliminary audience for the Nov. 17 broadcast was 2.22 million viewers.

The show also drew a preliminary rating in the P18-49 key demo of 0.53. That’s up from the 0.24 rating rating from the FS1 broadcast for November 24. For comparison, the Nov. 17 broadcast drew a final rating of 0.62. The overnight rating for Nov. 17 was 0.59.

Obviously, SmackDown faced heavy competition on Friday, with the NCAA Pac-12 Championship between Washington and Oregon on ABC. The live broadcast topped the primetime network programming on Friday with 7.254 million viewers and a 1.72 rating in the key demo.

Last Friday’s show saw the first appearance of Randy Orton on SmackDown in over a year, and Orton signed with the SmackDown roster. Also, WWE announced that the recently returned CM Punk will be back on SmackDown next week.