Things are definitely looking brightened up for Smackdown Live, right now. They started the year on a quiet note. While WWE Raw was giving us several big matches and historical matches like Women’s Elimination Chamber, they were suffering from lack of big names under their banner.
On the other hand, only AJ Styles and the heel in the form of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were the viable names on the brand.
Due to this, the authority figures, Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon had to be part of the lackluster storylines to save those.
But, the WWE Championship angle was so-much-dragged that the audience lost their interest, for sure. However, a bright comeback was seen from the blue brand, once again during the Wrestlemania season.
Daniel Bryan coming back to action was a huge boost to their TV ratings. Also, the superstar shakeup brought Samoa Joe, Jeff Hardy, the IIconics and more to make things interesting.
Moreover, a heel Nakamura had also changed the course of the main event scene. Owing to all of these, Smackdown ratings have seen a huge increase in recent times.
Starting from last week’s episode, Smackdown was able to remain almost the same viewers. A slight drop was observed which can be neglected.
According to the reports of Showbuzz Daily, the so-called B-show of the WWE managed to keep the steady ongoing as we head towards the Backlash PPV event.
This week, we have seen an interesting segment between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura to hype up the WWE Championship match.
Plus, the main event featured a six-Woman Tag Team Match that saw Asuka, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair defeat WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion Carmella, and The IIconics (Billie Kay & Peyton Royce).
Due to these, the May 1st episode has drawn a viewership of 2.436 million whereas the previous episode on April 24 received 2.549 million viewers.
In addition, the full list of viewership for all of the 2018 episodes is available.
You can check this out below to understand the difference between the ratings between January and May, (courtesy Sportskeeda.com)
January 2nd Episode: 2.720 million viewers
January 9th Episode: 2.603 million viewers
January 16th Episode: 2.602 million viewers
January 23rd Episode: 2.580 million viewers
January 30th Episode: 2.509 million viewers (Post-Royal Rumble Episode)
February 6th Episode: 2.505 million viewers
February 13th Episode: 2.449 million viewers
February 20th Episode: 2.613 million viewers
February 27th Episode: 2.692 million viewers
March 6th Episode: 2.590 million viewers
March 13th Episode: 2.771 million viewers (post-Fastlane episode)
March 20th Episode: 2.888 million viewers
March 27th Episode: 2.576 million viewers
April 3rd Episode: 2.467 million viewers
April 10th Episode: 2.952 million viewers (post-WrestleMania 34 episode)
April 17th Episode: 2.796 million viewers (Superstar Shakeup episode)
April 24th Episode: 2.549 million viewers
May 1st Episode: 2.436 million viewers
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