SmackDown’s numbers unchanged despite holiday, Biden interview

Last week’s Thursday holiday slowed down ratings reporting, did it impact WWE’s Friday night numbers?

Not according to the ones from Programming Insider. In fact, the July 5 SmackDown posted the same numbers the previous week’s show did: an overall audience of 2,256,000 and a .66 rating among 18-49 year olds.

People stretching the Fourth of July into a long weekend wasn’t the only factor at play. On the plus side, the latest SmackDown was following up on the previous week’s hot Bloodline angle. It was also part of WWE’s Money in the Bank weekend in Toronto, and featured their final push to that premium live event. Working against Team Blue was ABC News’ exclusive interview with President Biden about his much-discussed debate performance from the week before. That aired opposite SmackDown’s first half-hour, and won the night on television as it was watched by 8.6 million while doing a .70 in the demo.

The Biden interview was the only program that beat SmackDown in Friday’s ratings. It wasn’t the only competition they faced though — FS1’s coverage of Canada’s big win over Argentina in Copa America started at 9 p.m. Eastern and did a .50 in 18-49 off 1.4 million total viewers.

We’ll see if SmackDown makes it three weeks in a row with identical numbers. In the meantime, here’s a rundown of the past year’s worth of SmackDown’s numbers:

• July 7, 2023 - 2.56 million viewers / .76 demo rating
• July 14 - 2.31 / .62
• July 21* - 1.23 / .36
• July 28 - 2.32 / .61
• Aug. 4 - 2.25 / .62
• Aug. 11 - 2.1 / .55
• Aug. 18 - 2.09 / .55
• Aug. 25 - 2.65 / .78
• Sept. 1 - 2.44 / .65
• Sept. 8 - 2.09 / .53
• Sept. 15 - 2.57 / .70
• Sept. 22 - 2.23 / .63
• Sept. 29 - 2.30 / .60
• Oct. 6 - 2.32 / .64
• Oct. 13 - 2.42 / .62
• Oct. 20 - 2.25 / .59
• Oct. 28* - 1.15 / .35
• Nov. 3 - 2.12 / .53
• Nov. 10 - 2.2 / .57
• Nov. 17 - 2.21 / .62
• Nov. 24* - 789,000 / .24
• Dec. 1 - 2.04 million / .59
• Dec. 8 - 2.38 / .63
• Dec. 15 - 2.24 / .55
• Dec. 22 - 2.11 / .55
• Dec. 29** - 1.36 / .28
• Jan. 5, 2024 - 2.47 / .67
• Jan. 12 - 2.38 / .64
• Jan. 19 - 2.41 / .62
• Jan. 26 - 2.48 / .71
• Feb. 2 - 2.47 / .74
• Feb. 9 - 2.58 / .75
• Feb. 16 - 2.56 / .75
• Feb. 23 - 2.27 / .62
• Mar. 1 - 2.35 / .64
• Mar. 8 - 2.44 / .69
• Mar. 15 - 2.34 / .68
• Mar. 22 - 2.24 / .61
• Mar. 29 - 2.20 / .60
• April 5 - 2.60 / .77
• April 12 - 2.5 / .76
• April 19 - 2.33 / .63
• April 26 - 2.14 / .58
• May 3 - 2.14 / .60
• May 10 - 2.13 / .62
• May 17 - 2.19 / .59
• May 24 - 2.15 / .56
• May 31 - 2.31 / .65
• June 7 - 2.21 / .61
• June 14 - 1.96 / 52
• June 21 - 2.36 / .73
• June 28 - 2.26 / .66
• July 5 - 2.26 / .66

* Aired on FS1
** “Best of” clip show

For complete results and this week’s SmackDown live blog click here, to read a recap & review of the night’s events click here, and to check out video highlights of the episode click here.