Tuesday night’s episode of SmackDown on the USA Network averaged 2.505 million viewers, virtually identical with last week’s total of 2.509 million.
This was despite the fact that Raw’s audience the previous night was down from last week, at 3.08 million. SmackDown retained about 82 percent of the Raw total, right in the range of what it normally does.
SmackDown finished tenth for the night in total viewers on cable and third in the 18-49 demo with a 0.75 rating. Tops in that demo was a late NBA basketball game, which posted a 1.04 rating but a similar viewer total to SmackDown. They did not air head-to-head, though, as the game started at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time.
The show was built around a number one contender’s match between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn that ended in a non-finish after WWE Champion AJ Styles got involved. That resulted in Daniel Bryan announcing a triple threat main event for Fastlane on March 11th.