Friday Ratings: SmackDown Hit a 39-Month Demo High Ahead of WrestleMania XL
Fox’s April 5 broadcast of Friday Night SmackDown drew 2.6 million total viewers — the program’s largest audience since December of 2022 — and a 0.8 rating that translated into its best demo delivery (1.05 million people in that coveted age group) since December of the year 2020.
All told, heading into WrestleMania XL weekend, SmackDown saw gains of 18% in total audience and 28% in the demo.
Opposite the high-rated grappling, CBS’ Fire Country (5 mil/0.4, average TVLine reader grade “A”) was steady with its eventful “fire-nado,” while S.W.A.T.’s Luca sendoff (4.5 mil/0.3, TVLine reader grade “A+”) and Blue Bloods (4.9 mil/0.3) dipped in both measures.
Elsewhere, ABC’s Shark Tank (3 mil/0.3) was steady.
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The Live+Same Day numbers reported in TVLine’s daily-ish ratings column do NOT reflect a television program’s overall performance, given the increased use of delayed playback via DVR and streaming platforms, plus out-of-home viewing. These numbers (Nielsen fast nationals, unless specifically denoted in bold as finals) instead aim to simply illustrate trends or superlatives. Steve Harvey is not a judge or lawyer and merely offers an alternative forum of dispute resolution.
FOX going to lose that key demo win on Friday’s when Smackdown moves to the USA Network. Guess they don’t care about winning that “important” demo after all.