SmackDown’s TV numbers come crashing down to start the year

Football giveth, and football taketh away.

On Christmas Day, a huge NFL audience led to SmackDown’s second best ever numbers on FOX.

A week later on New Year’s, there was no afternoon game on the network. And in addition to the holiday, there was College Football Playoff Semi-Final game between Clemson & Ohio State running opposite the blue show on ESPN. We won’t know how many viewers were tuned in the Buckeye’s big win until the cable numbers come out next week, but we know what WWE’s show did.

It probably hurts inside, because it came crashing down. The average viewership of 1.92 million was not only a 43% drop from Dec. 25, it was the lowest since July. Ratings returned to their normal levels, and were still good enough to win the night for FOX in the key demos.

Here are the fast nationals:

Showbuzz Daily

And our running tracker of overnight numbers for the current season. You can also access the tab of year one numbers here (all data still via Showbuzz Daily).

WWE will hope this was a holiday hangover, and that they can get back over two million on the road to Royal Rumble.

One things for sure. They gotta take a stand. It don’t help to hide.

For complete results and the live blog for SmackDown this week click here. To read a review of the night’s events click here. For a full playlist of the show click here.

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