SmackDown ratings mostly unchanged in second week of the post-draft era

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Joseph Currier | @josephcurrier | Aug 3, 2016 2:06 pm

The ratings for the second week of SmackDown’s new era were mostly unchanged from last week’s first post-draft episode.

Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown was watched by 2.68 million people, which is slightly down from the 2.73 million who had watched last week.

Raw again bested SmackDown in the ratings this week, as the show was watched by 3.30 million people. Both Raw and SmackDown saw similar small drops from last week’s ratings, and both shows likely held up in part because of a lack of competition now that both Republican and Democratic National Conventions are over.

While SmackDown ratings have inevitably fallen from the lofty 3.17 million people who watched the WWE Draft edition of the show, ratings have seemed to settle at a level comfortably of what the show had been doing on Thursday nights.

The brand extension was instituted largely in response to worse than anticipated SmackDown ratings on Thursdays. And that neither Raw or SmackDown saw a sizable drop-off in the second week of the new era should indicate that the numbers aren't built on temporary post-draft hype.