WWE Chairman/CEO Vince McMahon was a winner and a loser this week.
First, the bad news: He stepped down from his executive position with the WWE as an investigation into misconduct and secret agreements was surfaced by the Wall St. Journal.
Now, the good news: He appeared at the start of Fox’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown, boosting the ratings as the world tuned in to see whether he would address the controversy.
He didn’t. But the hint that he might drove the show’s ratings to a winning score of 0.6, marking a 26% week-over-week in total viewers and 46% rise in the coveted 18-49 demo.
The semi-final of reality show Come Dance with Me on CBS came in with an 0.2, setting up a big finish. That was followed by a CBS News special, Watergate: High Crimes, a 50th anniversary documentary on the controversial burglary that brought down a president. It also tallied an 0.2.
ABC had the special Soul of a Nation: Sound of Freedom, examining the legacy of the Juneteenth holiday through the current lens of political and social unrest. It had an 0.2, with newsmag 20/20 running a repeat.
NBC had an exclusive Dateline sit-down with Amber Heard, the ex-wife of Johnny Depp and loser in the defamation trial “heard” ’round the world. Her interview came in with a surprisingly mild score of 0.2, followed by an American Ninja Warrior repeat.
The CW rolled out a repeat of Penn & Teller: Fool Us and back to back repeats World’s Funniest Animals.
