WWE News: WWE SmackDown Staying On Friday Nights
It seems that WWE will be staying where they have been for nearly a decade. It was reported a month ago that WWE SmackDown, WWE’s second-tier television show, was set to move from Friday back to Thursday, where it originally began. There was no real reason for the move, but most felt the thought was SyFy wanted to have a big show on it’s network to help it compete against other shows in the Thursday lineup.
This was not a good thing for WWE however, as both football and major shows happen on Thursday. This risks WWE’s viewership and potentially advertising money for SyFy, as it expects a certain amount of people to tune into SmackDown weekly.
The rumors of a move first began when a WWE truck was spotted having a new paint job, advertising WWE SmackDown on Thursdays at 8/7c. This obviously led many to believe that a move was set to occur. It was then reported that WWE felt they jumped the gun on the paint job and would be changing it back to Friday.
This was a key thing when the thought came about regarding a move. Clearly, if WWE was going to be on Thursday, a change back would be dumb as it would be a waste of money. Many felt that WWE would stay on Friday if the change was made. The change was made, and now we can confirm that SmackDown will be staying on Friday nights with SyFy.
The news came as SyFy put out their fall lineup, where SmackDown was listed as a Friday show as usual.
The only major change of note was that Haven, starring former WWE Champion Edge, will be moving from 10/9c to 8/7c, still remaining on Thursday night.
This is a big win for WWE in the long-run potentially. When fall hits, WWE has a lot of problems. Shows, as well as sports, usually tend to hurt their ratings. There is so much to watch, and since DVR is not counted in viewing, WWE loses a lot of their normal audience on a weekly basis from September through December. Moving to Thursday would only continue to make that problem worse.
So the move seemed to be halted in favor of WWE staying on Friday night. While classically a night many are out, WWE would potentially still manage better ratings then than on Thursday, which, like Monday, is a stacked night of entertainment and sports for Americans.
WWE and SyFy will probably be better off now that SmackDown is staying on Friday night. SmackDown could always move potentially in 2015, so we cannot know that the show will never be put on another night. What is interesting is that TNA moved Impact Wrestling to Wednesday, seeing that they would potentially have competition with WWE if they moved to the night Impact was on, which had been Thursday until recently. There is no news on TNA moving back to Thursday as of yet, but don’t be surprised if it does.
[IMG Credit: h-4entertainment.com, fanpop.com]
