Friday Ratings: Wrestling Helps Fox Stay Top The Night With No Baseball ‘Til Spring

Bruce Haring

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No World Series? No problem, said Fox, as its WWE Friday Night SmackDown returned to reclaim the top honors in the Friday ratings wars after the World Series closed on Wednesday with a dramatic Game 7.

The two-hour wrestling extravaganza scored an 0.8 in 18-49 to lead the night, with its 2.54 million total audience holding steady from its last airing before the Series took over.

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CBS was nipping at the demo heels, though, as its drama lineup saw Hawaii Five-0 come in at an 0.7 and 6.91 million, holding steady in demos and up slightly in audience, with Magnum P.I. gaining momentum, also tallying a stable 0.6 and 6.4 million. Blue Bloods capped the night with — you guessed it — a 0.6 and the night’s largest total audience at 7.59 million.

At NBC, The Blacklist came in at a season-high 0.6 in demos, scoring 3.9 million viewers. That strong lead-in saw Dateline also score an 0.6, the highest of the night for a newsmag. It also garnered 3.5 million in total viewers.

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ABC’s comedy American Housewife was up, coming in at a strong 0.7 and 3.78 million. Fresh Off the Boat was steady from last week, achieving an 0.5 and 2.53 million audience. 20/20 was down a tick to an 0.5 and 3.17 million total audience

Rounding out the night was The CW, where Charmed came in at an 0.2 and 690,000 viewers. Dynasty was at an 0.1 and 360,000. Both held steady in demos and were down in total audience.

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