Roman’s return doesn’t bring an increase in SmackDown’s ratings

The ratings are in for July 8.

Both SmackDown & Rampage saw their numbers dip last week. The overall picture still looks fine relative to the numbers other television content is getting on Friday nights, though.

WWE brought back Roman Reigns for the first time in a while, but that didn’t lead to increased ratings. Maybe if he’d done more than talked about SummerSlam and watched Austin Theory take a lap?

SmackDown has an audience of 2.13 million, and a .47 rating among 18-49 year olds. Those were week-to-week declines of .4 and 4%, respectively. While WWE and FOX probably hoped for better, the blue brand was still the second highest rated show on television, outpaced by only — you guessed it, Frank Stallone Univision’s Mi Fortuna es Amarte. The telenovela won the night with a .53 demo rating.

AEW didn’t have a hook like the previous Friday’s #1 contender battle royal, delivering a fairly ROH-focused show instead. Rampage’s numbers predictably dipped as a result; 12% from last Friday to 428K viewers, and 6% in the demo to a .15 rating. Considering July 1’s were the best the b-show’s done for TNT in months, and that it still finished tenth among cable originals... it could certainly be worse. Ahead of Rampage were the usual mix of news and reality programming.

Thoughts?

Numbers via Showbuzz Daily