Posted on 9/06/124 by Colin Vassallo
The final Smackdown on FOX will air tonight live at 8PM ET
and the show will be moving back to cable on USA Network
with next week’s broadcast.
Smackdown moved to FOX in October 2019, giving WWE added
exposure thanks to the wider reach of network television.
The five-year deal, valued at $1.025 billion, was announced
in June 2018.
“At FOX we are thrilled to welcome WWE to the FOX Sports
family and bring SmackDown LIVE to broadcast television,”
said Eric Shanks, President, COO and Executive Producer FOX
Sports at the time. “We are huge fans and know that together
FOX Sports will be the leader in live events for the
foreseeable future.”
The deal was supposed to end in October, but FOX was going
to move Smackdown to FS1 for the last few weeks. Instead of
taking the hit, WWE opted to move to USA Network a few weeks
earlier.
Smackdown’s premiere on FOX drew 3,869,000 viewers back in
October 2019 and to this day remains the most-watched
Smackdown on FOX. The only other time the show came close to
that number was the Christmas Day episode a year later when
Smackdown aired after an NFL game and benefited from the
lead-in viewers. That show did 3,303,000 viewers.
Viewership has been up and down over the last five years,
with 2020 and 2021 being the worst numbers on the network.
In the three months in 2019, Smackdown averaged 2,475,000
viewers. In 2020 it averaged 2,182,000 and it continued to
decrease to 2,081,000 viewers in 2021. In 2022, numbers went
back up to an average of 2,123,000 and last year it
increased further to 2,220,000.
This year, the show has done the best numbers on FOX since
2019 with an average of 2,299,000 viewers and a 0.64 average
in 18-49.
The show has consistently ranked #1 on Friday nights among
the 18-49 demographic on both network and cable television
but that will surely change now as the reach of USA Network
is less than that on FOX and shows on network television
typically do better than on cable.