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What's the story?
On the last episode of SmackDown Live before WrestleMania 34, WWE's blue brand could not maintain its viewership like Monday Night Raw managed to.
The April 4th edition of SmackDown Live averaged 2.467 million viewers - down 109,000 from the previous week's average of 2.576 million.
In case you didn't know...
Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon kicked off the show this past week, to settle their differences heading into their tag team match against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Other segments of note on the show were the backstage interviews of AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura, as well as the followup promo by Owens and Zayn.
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The biggest matches on the show were Charlotte Flair vs Natalya, Rusev vs Jinder Mahal and, Styles and Nakamura vs Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin.
The heart of the matter
The blue brand dominated cable amongst the 18-49 demographic and faced no big competition, with the exception of the recently renewed show "Roseanne" on ABC.
The viewership drop was across the board for WWE programming, but the severity of the decrease was much more stark for SmackDown Live.
While SmackDown's viewership dropped to the second lowest viewed episode of the year, Raw managed to maintain an impressive hold on their audience through the program, even up against the NCAA Championship Game.
The differences between Raw and SmackDown's viewership are more astonishing when compared to the pre-WrestleMania 33 episodes.
While Raw has seen growth from the road to WrestleMania 33, SmackDown's episodes have decreased from last year's buildup which focused on Styles vs McMahon and Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton.
Specifically, the SmackDown before 'Mania 33 averaged 2.698 million compared to this week's average of 2.467 - a loss of 231,000 fans.
What's next?
The SmackDown after WrestleMania usually gains a boost in ratings and viewership, but there has been a significant decline in the viewership boost for the post-WrestleMania episodes over the years.
An increase is expected with no competition in the ratings, but it could be distressing if the viewership post-Mania is lower than 2017.
Author's take
Tune in to WrestleMania this weekend to see if the matches can live up to their expectations.
