Strummer Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 PWI In a move that may be a sign that UPN will not renew Smackdown after its contract expires in the fall of 2006, the network announced at their upfront presentation today that Smackdown will be moving to Friday night, in the 8 to 10 timeslot, starting in the fall season. Friday night is one of the two traditionally worst drawing nights of the week for TV shows (Saturday is the worst). When you consider that WWE reaches younger viewers and that many of them go out on Friday nights, that probably means that Smackdown will do a lower rating on its new night. I just spoke with a highly placed source in the company who told me that WWE management did not want the show to move from Thursday nights but given that they only have a year left on their contract, and recently moved their cable programming from Spike TV, UPN's sister company, to USA, it's not like WWE could do anything about it. At this time, it's not known if USA would take on Smackdown when its contract with UPN expires next year. Clearly trying to bury the show, they will be lucky to reach a 3.0 (if that) on Friday Nights Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 This may be the beginning of the end of the brand extension as we know it. USA was hesitant to even pick up RAW; I'll be very surprised if they pick up Smackdown too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 It seems stupid on UPN's part to bury their highest rated show. Oh well. I for one hope they lose all of their shows but Raw. Maybe that will finally wake Vince up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 The only problem with the brand extension ending, however, would be that they would simply not have enough TV time to push all of their talent, and guys like Chris Jericho would end up on Velocity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Some Guy Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 This will kill the brand, or atleast hurt it badly. WWE might be able to convince USA to pick up SD!, but they probably don't want to be considered "the wrestling channel." I woudn't be crushed to see the show and brand extension dropped. It would certainly vary up Raw and probably make Heat better. I make Heat the opening hour to Raw each week. Force people to tune in to Heat so they know what the hell is going on on Raw. This could be a blessing in disguise for the product. The younger guys who aren't ready will have more time to develop and there will be a more competitve drive among the mid-card to fight their way up. HBK, Angle, and Taker probably aren't going to be around much longer, nor will Benoit, Eddy, Batista, and a few other guys who are 35 and older. So a lot of spots will be opening up in the next few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 The only problem with the brand extension ending, however, would be that they would simply not have enough TV time to push all of their talent, and guys like Chris Jericho would end up on Velocity. I could see them releasing a lot of OVW guys and a lot of their Hoss of the Month guys if they actually lost Smackdown. That would probably kill all of this Diva Search nonsense as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 I retract the initial statement I made -- WWE still very much exists in a pre-monopoly mindset, and that comment was made in a pre-monopoly mindset. There is a belief that every single wrestler has to be on every single TV show every single week, which is simply not true. If you look at the rosters of companies in the past that have been enormous, they haven't used every single television show to spotlight every single piece of talent they have. Appearances would become more special, from everyone, if they weren't happening every week, and maybe they could switch gears and start running squash matches again with a longer main event. It would make people appreciate the longer matches more, the rest of the roster could get their finishers over in the undercard and they wouldn't burn out the top guys as quickly as they have over the past few years. By proxy, house shows may draw better, because the guys would work harder and they would feature matches you couldn't see every week on TV anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 I think keeping the brand extension and then running each brand every other week might be interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 Just to add. Less tv time might be a blessing for them. I've been watching a lot of recent OVW stuff and they've got no prospects there. Just a terrible group of wrestlers and bimbos down there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Some Guy Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 I retract the initial statement I made -- WWE still very much exists in a pre-monopoly mindset, and that comment was made in a pre-monopoly mindset. There is a belief that every single wrestler has to be on every single TV show every single week, which is simply not true. If you look at the rosters of companies in the past that have been enormous, they haven't used every single television show to spotlight every single piece of talent they have. Appearances would become more special, from everyone, if they weren't happening every week, and maybe they could switch gears and start running squash matches again with a longer main event. It would make people appreciate the longer matches more, the rest of the roster could get their finishers over in the undercard and they wouldn't burn out the top guys as quickly as they have over the past few years. By proxy, house shows may draw better, because the guys would work harder and they would feature matches you couldn't see every week on TV anyway. I was trying to get at that but I don't think I articulated it well at all. If HHH wasn't all over Raw every week, then I don't think people would have as much of a problem with him being on top. Hogan lasted so long as champion in the 80s because he wasn't over-exposed. He wrestled on free TV so rarely that it was a special event and he seldom appeared live in the arena on Superstars and Challenge. If they end up with one show they can extend careers and drawing power by not overexposing their workers and making people sick of them. HHH can take a week off, HBk can take a week off, Angle can take a week off, etc... and they wouldn't even need to explain it. They can more readily send a stale wrestler to OVW and then bring him back fresh and ready to go because they'll have less TV time to fill. They would also have the ability to build tag teams again because they'd have enough talent to pair guys off. I think my idea of using Heat as a pre-show for Raw to set up the angles for the next day would work really well, if they could do it properly and let people know that Heat is now must see TV to keep up on the angles. That is how they originally used Heat and not coincedentally that is when people actually watched it. BTW Loss, I'm pretty sure that Velocity will be canceled when the move is made to USA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 WWE has viewed Smackdown as the B show for years anyway, moving to Fridays will only cement that belief. I don't get how people think ending the brand split would be a good thing. It would just mean that all you'd see on WWE TV is HHH and Undertaker. I don't see how less TV would make people want to go to house shows to watch people they barely see on TV. The brand split is as close as we have in the US to competiton, having one of them shut down would just make the product even more stale and boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 I don't see how less TV would make people want to go to house shows to watch people they barely see on TV. The idea is that if you can't see them for free and know the only way you can see them is to pay for them, then you'll be more likely to pay for them. Heat was the biggest waste by the way, especially when it was on MTV. Do you realize how many companies trying to reach an 18-34 year old male demographic would *kill* for an hour a week of primetime exposure on MTV? It was treated as an afterthought by WWE, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 The idea is that if you can't see them for free and know the only way you can see them is to pay for them, then you'll be more likely to pay for them. The thing is, the wrestlers that people would pay to see aren't likely to not be on free TV. The people who are likely to be bumped off free TV aren't going to generate much house show sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 Yes and no. The idea is that you have HHH and HBK do squashes and promos afterwards instead of putting them in 15-20 minute matches. You don't do long matches between big names on TV, because you want to make people pay to see those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hunter's Torn Quad Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 This has been a year of major changes already for the business, but most of them you could see coming. This change, not so much. The thing that appears pretty clear is UPN sees "Everybody Loves Chris," a Chris Rock produced comedy, as the jewel of their schedule. Historically, Thursday night at 8 p.m. since the beginning of time has been when the highest rated comedies on TV have aired (well, that's been Friends seemed like it was on since the beginning of time). The feeling is with "Joey," on NBC as the highest profile comedy, and it as anything but a ratings success, put there, that the 8 p.m. comedy slot was vulnerable. The move, which nobody in WWE was aware of until today, was far more because of how well the Rock show did in test screenings and they wanted to put it in what they thought was its most advantageous time slot, and far less a knockdown of Smackdown. But the fact WWE wasn't consulted head of time has to be taken as a major slap in the face anyway. From the latest update by Meltzer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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