WWE SmackDown Ratings Remain Steady Once Again

This week's WWE SmackDown ratings and viewership overnight figures are in and we've got them here for you, fresh off the press. According to the report published to Showbuzz Daily, this week's edition of SmackDown averaged 2.153 million viewers Friday night on FOX. This number comes from a first hour that drew 2.200 million viewers and a second hour that drew 2.105 million viewers. For comparison, last week's SmackDown ended up averaging 2.120 million viewers, so if this week's number holds when final figures come out on Monday, it will be up slightly.

In terms of pure viewership, SmackDown ranked oward the bottom of network television on Friday night. The show was defeated by Shark Tank, 20/20, MacGyver, Magnum P.I., and Blue Bloods. The U.S. Figure Skating Championships aired for three hours on NBC, with its first hour drawing a better number (2.422 million) than either of SmackDown's two hours, but the subsequent two hours on NBC drew lower numbers and dropped its average below SmackDown's.

In the coveted 18-49 age group ratings demographic, SmackDown came in with a 0.60 rating in the overnights. This ranked third place among network competition on Friday night, being defeated by Shark Tank (0.70) and 20/20 (0.65). Last week's show did a 0.56 18-49 demo rating when final numbers were released.

Among 18-34 year olds, SmackDown drew a 0.30 demo rating. This tied for first place among network competition alongside Shark Tank and MacGyver. The show did a 0.31 rating in this demo last week.

SmackDown featured a contract signing between Roman Reigns and Adam Pearce in the main event segment that revealed Kevin Owens had replaced Pearce in the match with Reigns at the Royal Rumble. The show opened with a match between Jey Uso and Shinsuke Nakamura and also featured an unadvertised Cesaro vs. Daniel Bryan bout that was very good.

WWE presents the 2021 Royal Rumble in just over two weeks, live on the WWE Network. The updated WWE Royal Rumble 2021 card is as follows:

• WWE Championship Match
  Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Bill Goldberg
• WWE Universal Title - Last Man Standing Match
  Roman Reigns (c) vs. Kevin Owens
• 30-Man Royal Rumble Match
  Daniel Bryan, WWE United States Champion Bobby Lashley, AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Otis, The Miz, Jey Uso, and 23 others TBA
• 30-Woman Royal Rumble Match
  Nia Jax, WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Charlotte Flair, Bayley, Bianca Belair, Mandy Rose, Dana Brooke, and 24 others TBA

Which match are you most excited for? Let us know in the comments section below! Additionally, you can give me a follow on Twitter @ryandroste for all things WWE and AEW.