This week’s taped New Year’s edition of WWE SmackDown, featuring AJ Styles winning a Fatal 5 Way main event plus John Cena’s advertised return, drew 2.091 million viewers. This is up from last week’s 1.904 million viewers for the taped Christmas Night episode.

This week marks the second week in a row that the blue brand topped the red brand as the New Year’s Eve edition of RAW drew 1.968 million viewers, down from last week’s 1.775 million viewers for the Christmas Eve episode. Last week’s SmackDown drew 1.904 million viewers, compared to RAW’s 1.775 million viewers. This is just the fourth time SmackDown beat RAW since the blue brand went live in July 2016.

SmackDown was #10 for the night in viewership on cable, behind 7 ESPN programs related to the College Football Bowl games, SportsCenter at midnight and Curse of Oak Island. SmackDown was #10 in the 18-49 demographic this week, behind the same programs.

The big draw on network TV at 8pm was the NCIS special on CBS, which drew 5.541 million viewers. The Conners drew 3.825 million viewers on ABC while NBC’s Ellen special drew 4.422 million viewers, Lethal Weapon on Fox drew 3.383 million viewers and The Flash on CW drew 595,000 viewers.

Below is our 2019 SmackDown Viewership Tracker::

January 1 Episode: 2.091 million viewers (New Year’s episode, taped)
January 8 Episode:

2018 Total: 122.304 million viewers
2018 Average: 2.352 million viewers per episode

2017 Total: 132.401 million viewers
2017 Average: 2.546 million viewers per episode