SmackDown: The Impact of WWE Moving it to Thursday Nights

Well folks, after about three months of speculation, WWE has announced that SmackDown will be moving to Thursday nights. The show has been broadcast on Friday nights since 2005 in what has been considered the “death slot.”

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Here’s the statement that WWE released regarding the blue brand.

"The show that averages 3.1 million viewers on Friday nights and beats all Friday primetime viewing on any cable network is moving to Thursday nights on Syfy beginning January 15 at 8pm ET. With nearly 800 original episodes, SmackDown is the second longest-running weekly episodic program in U.S. television history, only behind WWE’s other flagship program, Monday Night Raw.“WWE’s sizable and passionate fan base make SmackDown the No. 1 entertainment show on Syfy and the most-watched, regularly scheduled program among key demographics on the network,” said Michelle Wilson, WWE Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer. “We look forward to bringing the WWE audience to Thursday nights on Syfy.”“Quite simply, more young men watch television on Thursday night than on Fridays,” said Michael Engleman, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Digital and Global Brand Strategy, Syfy. “Among Men 18-49, PUTS [persons using television] are 15 percent higher compared to Fridays, expanding the potential audience for SmackDown. Since the majority of broadcast programming skews female, we’re also using Thursday nights to counter-program.”With a name made famous 15 years ago by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s popular catchphrase, SmackDown has been broadcast from 170 different venues, in 148 cities and towns, in seven different countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Iraq, Japan, Italy and Mexico."

WWE acknowledged inside the statement that more young men watch television on Thursday nights than Fridays. That may be true, but they’re going to be facing some stiff competition. From September through the end of December, they’ll have to compete with Thursday Night Football. TNT also broadcasts their NBA games at 8 pm ET on that night as well throughout the basketball season, so it will be interesting to see how WWE can pull viewers from both events.

The another factor here is WWE NXT. Currently, it is promoted as being on at 9 pm ET on the WWE Network, even though the original airing is on at 4 pm ET. They could start promoting it as being on at that time, although it is a bit of an awkward time on the weekday with people at work or school. A more realistic possibility could be WWE pushing the airing of it to 10 pm ET on Thursdays or moving it to an earlier slot of 7 pm ET, so fans can then go straight to SmackDown on Syfy. There’s two months to decide on this, so it will be interesting to see what WWE decides to do.

Are you satisfied with SmackDown moving to Thursday nights?