Friday's episode of WWE SmackDown, which featured a celebration for Roman Reigns reaching 1,000 days as champion,
averaged 2.563 million viewers on Fox.
That's up 18.8 percent from the previous week and is SmackDown's best audience of the year. It's the highest audience total for the show since John Cena returned to the ring on the December 30, 2022 edition of SmackDown.
SmackDown topped all of television with a 0.73 rating in the 18-49 demo, up 40.4 percent from last week. That's the best rating for the show since the Christmas Day episode in 2020 which had an NFL lead-in.
SmackDown nearly doubled the closest competition on television for the day in 18-49. In terms of total viewers, it was the fifth-highest viewed show on all of TV for the day.
SmackDown also led all of TV with a 0.50 rating in the 18-34 demo, which more than doubled the closest competition and almost tripled the closest English-language show. The year-over-year increase in that demo was 92.3 percent.
As compared to the same week in 2022, SmackDown's overall audience was up 32.2 percent while its 18-49 demo rating was up 55.3 percent. SmackDown did face tougher competition last year with the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs. There was no major sports last Friday.
Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo ratings for SmackDown, along with the 10-week averages in both categories. This week's show was up 14.1 percent in overall viewers and up 23.7 percent in 18-49 as compared to the recent averages.