{"id":700496,"date":"2026-05-28T17:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700496\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T17:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:52:09","slug":"friday-night-smackdown-ranks-second-on-cable-behind-the-nhl-playoffs-post-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/700496\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Night SmackDown ranks second on cable behind the NHL playoffs &#8211; POST Wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/088_SD_05222026CM_153800-678x381.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"SmackDown\"\/><br \/>\nPhoto Courtesy: WWE<\/p>\n<p>Friday Night SmackDown ranked second for the night this past week, airing against the NBA and NHL playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>The May 22 episode of SmackDown averaged 1,258,000 viewers and 395,000 viewers (0.29) in the 18-49 demographic on the USA Network.<\/p>\n<p>The show increased by six percent in overall viewership, and the 18-49 demographic increased by 26% from last week. Both figures are two-week highs.<\/p>\n<p>SmackDown ranked second on cable on Friday behind the NHL playoffs, which averaged 2,148,000 viewers and 0.60 in 18-49 on ESPN. On broadcast, the NBA playoffs dominated the night with 7,029,000 viewers and 1.77 in 18-49 for Game 3 of the New York Knicks vs. Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n<p>In 18-34, SmackDown averaged a 0.18 (up from 0.17) and did a 0.36 in 25-54 (up from 0.29).<\/p>\n<p>Internationally, the show ranked on Netflix\u2019s top ten chart in Canada, Bolivia, Trinidad &amp; Tobago, and Nicaragua.<\/p>\n<p>SmackDown will air from Europe over the next two weeks with a live airing in the afternoon for international viewers on Netflix and run on a several-hour tape delay on the USA Network.<\/p>\n<p>Data: <a href=\"https:\/\/programminginsider.com\/sheriff-country-fire-country-and-boston-blue-season-enders-lead-cbs-to-friday-victory\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Programming Insider<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/posts\/data-report-wwe-159424598\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wrestlenomics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo Courtesy: WWE Friday Night SmackDown ranked second for the night this past week, airing against the NBA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-700496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}