After three months of uncertainty, there is a good news for WWE SmackDown. The Friday Night SmackDown of the previous week was the finale event before the retirement fight of John Cena at Saturday Night's Main Event. One of the four matches was the fight in which Ilja Dragunov stood his ground and also claimed victory over Tommaso Ciampa for the United States Championship.
WWE SmackDown sees viewership spike after thrilling lineup
The confrontation between Oba Femi and Cody Rhodes, who were going to fight at SNME, kicked off the show, along with Je’Von Evans winning over The Miz, and a successful reunion of Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest against Zelina and Aleister Black.
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It turned out that the lineup and the major weekend that followed were enough to bring in good numbers after several months. As per the previous report by Programming Insider, the WWE SmackDown episode that aired on December 12th, on USA Network, averaged 1.24 million viewers, which is a substantial increase from the 1.063 million of the previous week.
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Ratings rebound as SmackDown sees jump in key demo
Besides, it gained a 0.26 rating in the 18-49 demo, which is also a step up from the previous episode's rating of just 0.24. The last Friday Night show also indicated the highest number of viewers since the September 19 episode. Over the last 10 weeks, the Halloween episode of WWE SmackDown, which saw a drop to a million at the lowest of 933,000 viewers, was the lowest-rated episode.
SmackDown’s USA Network deal limits show length
Monday Night RAW has been streamed on Netflix, and this gives them a more flexible runtime, but Friday Night SmackDown is not so lucky. The blue brand is still on the USA Network, while some countries can also watch it via Netflix. At the beginning of the year, it was allowed to run from 8 to 11 p.m. EST, but in June 2025, it was cut down to only two hours.
WWE confirms three-hour SmackDown comeback for 2026
Nonetheless, the three-hour format will be reinstated by 2026, which was already communicated by Michael Cole during last week’s show. The initial WWE SmackDown of the upcoming year is scheduled for January 2, 2026, at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York.