Facing big competition from the World Series and taking the usual hit that WWE does when their shows air on Halloween, SmackDown ratings fell 21 percent on Tuesday night. The show was down to 2.119 million viewers, which is the third lowest number for SmackDown since moving to a live format on Tuesday nights.
The show was ninth for the night on cable in terms of total viewers but did finish second in the 18-49 demo with a 0.65, trailing only American Horror Story.
The big competition was from game six of the World Series, which did over 18 million viewers on Fox during the two hours it aired opposite SmackDown. Ratings stalwarts NCIS, Bull, and This is Us also did big numbers against the show.
For only the second time since August, the show was down from the same week last year, which also went up against game six of the World Series:
SmackDown retained only 75 percent of the Raw audience from the previous night, one of the lowest totals since the brand split, but that can also be chalked up to Halloween and the competition from the World Series.
Next week should return to normal levels as the World Series ends tonight and there will likely be advancement in the Raw vs. SmackDown angle leading into Survivor Series in less than three weeks.
Here’s a look at SmackDown ratings in 2017 and how they compare to Raw’s from the same week: