WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown moved to MyNetworkTV stations on October 3. We no longer get Smackdown ratings for our overnight fast affiliate ratings posts, but we will still get them with our final weekly broadcast ratings, which include MyNetworkTV, on Tuesdays.

We’re going to experiment with posting the WWE ratings results for Friday Night Smackdown and WWE RAW together as long as there is interest.

Click here to see the past WWE ratings posts.

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Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Beginning October 3, WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown will move to MyNetworkTV stations from CW stations. We will likely no longer get Smackdown ratings for our overnight fast affiliate ratings posts, but we will still get them with our final weekly broadcast ratings, which include MyNetworkTV, on Tuesdays.

We think there’s quite a fanbase who is interested in WWE ratings, so we’re going to experiment with posting the WWE ratings results for Friday Night Smackdown and WWE RAW together. We will publish these WWE ratings on a weekly basis as long as there is interest. Click here to see all the WWE ratings posts.

The week of September 22-28 was Friday Night Smackdown’s last on the CW.

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Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

Beginning October 3, WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown will move to MyNetworkTV stations from CW stations. We will likely no longer get Smackdown ratings for our overnight fast affiliate ratings posts, but we will still get them with our final weekly broadcast ratings, which include MyNetworkTV, on Tuesdays.

We think there’s quite a fanbase who is interested in WWE ratings, so we’re going to experiment with posting the WWE ratings results for Friday Night Smackdown and WWE RAW together. Starting Tuesday, September 30, we will publish these WWE ratings on a weekly basis as long as there is interest. Click here to see the past WWE ratings posts.

Although for the week of September 15-21, Friday Night Smackdown was still on the CW, here are the results for the shows:

The NASCAR Pepsi 500 with 5.638 million viewers just beat out preseason NFL for the top spot this week. That’s the last time NFL football won’t dominate this list for about the next 5 months.

Our Sports Ratings combine the top Broadcast sports shows and any cable sports shows that appeared in the top 40 cable programs. It is possible that a cable sports show that had enough viewers to make this list is left off because it didn’t have enough viewers to make the list of the top 40 cable programs for the week which is all we have access to.

Note: We don’t have access to adults 18-49 viewership for cable programs.

Nielsen Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

MLB All-Star Game And Extras Take Top 6 Sports Spots for the Week

The first nine innings of the MLB All-Star Game topped the sports shows for the week of July 14-20 with an average viewership of 14.54 million viewers. The extra innings for the game were classified as a separate show, and that was #2 for the week with 11.6 million viewers.

Take into account the pre- and post- game shows, along with the Home Run Derby the night before, and the top 6 shows were all about the mid-summer festivities at Yankee Stadium.

My guess was that no matter what Greg Norman did, the Saturday-Sunday viewership for the British Open Golf championship would finish below 4 million average viewers, putting it below recent years (which often included Tiger Woods). Based on the individual viewerships of the two telecasts (Sunday at 4.64 million and Saturday at 3.387 million), it looks like I was too pessimistic, and the final number should be just over 4 million which would be comparable to the 2007 British Open.

Top Sports Shows for the Week of July 14-20, 2008:

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WWE Raw #1 and #3 Sports Shows For the Week

With no big sports event on the schedule, WWE Raw took the #1 and #3 spots for sports shows in the week of July 7-13, 2008 with viewerships of 5.831 and 5.059 million. Its broadcast relative, Friday Night Smackdown was #4 with 3.719 million viewers.

Always strong, the NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Chicago was #3 with 5.059 million.

Top Sports Shows for the Week of July 7-13, 2008:

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Olympic Trials Draw 6.5 Million

The Olympic Trials on July 6 in prime-time topped all sports shows for the week of June 30 - July 6 with an average audience of 6.486 million.

Filling out the top 10 were the always dependable NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Daytona and its post game, two WWE Raws, the Wimbledon Men’s Final, two baseball games and an early in the week Wimbledon update.

Unfortunately, the sports results for the week of June 23-29 have not yet appeared. We will post them if/when they do.

Top Sports Shows for the Week of June 30 - July 6, 2008:

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Celtics Championship Win Tops At 16.9 Million Viewers

To no one’s surprise the Celtic’s NBA Championship win in Game 6 of the NBA Finals was the top sports show of the week of  June 16-22, 2008 with viewership of 16.879 million viewers. Add in it’s pre and post game shows and it was 3 of the top 6 sports shows for the week.

Because of the US Open playoff on Monday we get a single week comparison of TV viewership for golf with Tiger Woods and without Tiger Woods.

Monday US Open Playoff featuring Tiger Woods front 9 on ESPN [4.762m viewers], back 9 on NBC [9.179m viewers]. These numbers are for a Monday afternoon.

Travelers Championship Saturday [1.457m] and Sunday [2.238m].

Of course it’s not apples to apples, the US Open is one of the 4 majors, but Tiger being lost for the rest of the 2008 season spells ratings Armageddon for golf this year.

Top Sports Shows for the Week of June 16-22, 2008:

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