Friday Night Smackdown on FOX was the only WWE show that increased in viewership in 2022 compared to 2021, with the blue brand averaging 2,123,000 viewers compared to the 2,081,000 of the prior year. The show consistently was judged to be better than the rest of the WWE shows and was close to its 2020 average which was 2,180,0000.
In the 18-49 demo, Smackdown was #1 for most weeks on network television in its time slot and had an average 0.51, down from the 0.54 the show did in 2021.
Smackdown pulled over 2 million viewers 41 weeks out of 52. That is the same number of weeks the show did over 2 million in 2021. But unlike in 2021, Smackdown managed over 2.5 million viewers for two shows, something that wasn’t done in 2021.
The most-watched Smackdown of 2022 was the last one which featured the return to the ring of John Cena. That show did 2,629,000 viewers. The September 23 episode was the second most watched with 2,535,000 viewers.
The December 30 episode was also the highest in 18-49 with a 0.64 rating. Smackdown did over a 0.60 in the demo seven times, which is down from the 13 times in 2021.
The least-watched episode of Smackdown was the October 28 episode with just 835,000 viewers. The December 2 episode also did 902,000. Both these shows aired on FS1 instead of FOX.
