Did SmackDown make a mistake moving from Thursdays?

[Unocal 76]

I never missed a SmackDown from 2000-2005 when I wasn't out of town in the Thursday era.

But I've been watching fewer and fewer of them since the move to Fridays.

Do you think it was a mistake, and would they have been better off staying on Thursdays or not?

[Sparkybob]

I'm pretty sure the move to Friday was a financial and ratings decision. They have much, much less competition on the Friday TV schedule as oppose to Thursday which is a big day for TV.

[________ has left the building]

People will watch a show no matter what day it airs. If anything, Smackdown suffered when they moved to MyNetwork. Not everybody had that station.

[Urethra Franklin]

At the time, no. When it moved, CSI was the top show on television on opposite it.

It was also up against Survivor, Dancing with the Stars and the NBC comedies.

It was a smart move to get it out of there.

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

I don't think WWE had much of a choice in the matter. though for a bit here we'd still play it on Thursday and they'd still talk about it being Friday Night Smackdown, which was a bit amusing.

[Todd Pettengill]

-Switching from UPN to a cable network hurt Smackdown the most.
-Filling the roster with mostly "B & B+" talent hurt Smackdown.
-Always pretaping while mostly featuring the aforementioned talent hurt.
-And, yes, moving to Friday hurt as well. For some reason, it seemed easier for me to avoid spoilers if it was on Thurs. That extra day makes a difference, as I enjoy doing things that do not revolve around watching TV on my Friday nights (as I'm sure many others do).

[chazraps]

Dec 11, 2013 16:26:33 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

People will watch a show no matter what day it airs.

This is absolutely not true. Countless shows have died due to being relocated on the network schedule.

[Urethra Franklin]

Dec 11, 2013 16:29:01 GMT -5 chazraps said:

Dec 11, 2013 16:26:33 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

People will watch a show no matter what day it airs.

This is absolutely not true. Countless shows have died due to being relocated on the network schedule.

You're absolutely right. It's a very common occurrence.

[Todd Pettengill]

Dec 11, 2013 16:29:01 GMT -5 chazraps said:

Dec 11, 2013 16:26:33 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

People will watch a show no matter what day it airs.

This is absolutely not true. Countless shows have died due to being relocated on the network schedule.

Yeah. as I said in my post, there are many of us who have much better things to do on a Friday night, rather than watching TV.

[Urethra Franklin]

Dec 11, 2013 16:30:59 GMT -5 Todd Pettengill said:

Dec 11, 2013 16:29:01 GMT -5 chazraps said:

This is absolutely not true. Countless shows have died due to being relocated on the network schedule.

Yeah. as I said in my post, there are many of us who have much better things to do on a Friday night, rather than watching TV.

Friday and Saturday are notorious dead zones for TV for that very reason.

The only exception is live sports.

[________ has left the building]

Dec 11, 2013 16:29:01 GMT -5 chazraps said:

Dec 11, 2013 16:26:33 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

People will watch a show no matter what day it airs.

This is absolutely not true. Countless shows have died due to being relocated on the network schedule.

Those shows died because of lack of network support and dwindling fanbase. FOX tried to kill off King of the Hill for years by putting it in the dead slot of 6-7pm on Sunday nights. But their fanbase still watched the show even after they lost the prime slot. Futurama didn't survive the change though. If a network wants to kill a show, they would air it on Saturday nights.

[Sparkybob]

Dec 11, 2013 16:30:59 GMT -5 Todd Pettengill said:

Dec 11, 2013 16:29:01 GMT -5 chazraps said:

This is absolutely not true. Countless shows have died due to being relocated on the network schedule.

Yeah. as I said in my post, there are many of us who have much better things to do on a Friday night, rather than watching TV.

Exactly way less competition for Smackdown. Someone who is staying home on a Friday night is less likely to channel surf since there are not many good tv series on except for live sports.

[Crimson]

Dec 11, 2013 16:22:50 GMT -5 Sparkybob said:

I'm pretty sure the move to Friday was a financial and ratings decision. They have much, much less competition on the Friday TV schedule as oppose to Thursday which is a big day for TV.

There's a reason why there's less competition on Friday's though. That's the night everyone goes out so ratings tend to be crap even if there's no shows "competing.". That's the reason why they call it the Friday Night Deathslot.

[________ has left the building]

And if they moved Smackdown to either Tuesday or Wednesday nights, people still wouldn't be guaranteed to watching the show because just like Friday nights; people got other things to do.

[chazraps]

Dec 11, 2013 16:36:49 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

Dec 11, 2013 16:29:01 GMT -5 chazraps said:

This is absolutely not true. Countless shows have died due to being relocated on the network schedule.

Those shows died because of lack of network support and dwindling fanbase. FOX tried to kill off King of the Hill for years by putting it in the dead slot of 6-7pm on Sunday nights. But their fanbase still watched the show even after they lost the prime slot. Futurama didn't survive the change though. If a network wants to kill a show, they would air it on Saturday nights.

You're talking about one show that was the exception, NOT the rule. When people are used to seeing a show at a certain time, it becomes habitual viewing. When you change that, the two types of shows it hurts most are newer shows looking to find an audience and long-running shows that have a definitive home.

This was especially true in 2005 when "Smackdown" first made its move when DVR/digital-VOD options to keep up with shows were nearly non-existent compared to now.

[________ has left the building]

Dec 11, 2013 16:53:40 GMT -5 chazraps said:

Dec 11, 2013 16:36:49 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

Those shows died because of lack of network support and dwindling fanbase. FOX tried to kill off King of the Hill for years by putting it in the dead slot of 6-7pm on Sunday nights. But their fanbase still watched the show even after they lost the prime slot. Futurama didn't survive the change though. If a network wants to kill a show, they would air it on Saturday nights.

You're talking about one show that was the exception, NOT the rule. When people are used to seeing a show at a certain time, it becomes habitual viewing. When you change that, the two types of shows it hurts most are newer shows looking to find an audience and long-running shows that have a definitive home.

This was especially true in 2005 when "Smackdown" first made its move when DVR/digital-VOD options to keep up with shows were nearly non-existent compared to now.

Other shows survived time slot moves before the rise of DVRs. Some shows actually lost portions of their fanbase because of being in the same time slot for years (American Idol). Look at NBC. Must See Tv Thursday was a ratings juggernaut for decades. Nowadays the hits are far and in between on that day for them. Smackdown was steady while on UPN. When they move to a new network, ratings started to free fall. Just like how the Ultimate Fighter's rating were dropping before they left Spike. Their fanbase was already leaving before the network move. On the list of why some people don't watch Smackdown, the show being on Fridays doesn't top the list.

[Malcolm]

I'd like to think they did. That and moving to cable(But that wasn't their fault though. Stupid Dawn Ostroff...).

[mizerable]

Personally speaking, yes. Monday and Thursday have always been the dullest days of the week, which is why Monday usually has a lot of good TV on.

There's always a lot of stuff going on on Fridays, so I'm less likely to sit and watch.

Add that to the fact that they haven't really tried with Smackdown for years and continually changing networks. I'd say since the Friday change, I've maybe watch a total of 40 episodes. But back in the day, Smackdown was must watch. Being only 3 days removed from Raw definitely helped too.

[Deleted]

. UPN attempted to screw WWE by moving WWE SmackDown! into the famed Friday Night Death Slot (where it would face not only constant pre-emptions for local sports, but the loss of a good portion of its audience to people getting out and doing stuff on Friday nights), in order to try and pressure WWE into keeping Monday Night Raw on Spike TV. However, thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign by WWE (even rebranding the show Friday Night SmackDown!), the show managed not only to not lose any viewers, but gained enough ground that it was one of the few UPN shows picked up by the post-merger CW.

They ultimately wound up screwing them anyway, but it took a few years; when it came time to renew contracts, CBS wasn't interested despite the high ratings. SmackDown moved to the much-less-notable My Network TV, and started beating The CW in ratings by a good margin.
Then it got screwed by Memphis and Des Moines when those cities decided to dump My Network TV after they went to a syndicated model in September 2009, however in both cases the CW affiliate picked SmackDown up for Saturday nights and pretty much got station upgrades otherwise. The rest of the My Network TV schedule was blissfully ignored by both of them.

Sadly, high ratings for wrestling mean NOTHING. Advertisers won't touch it (they believe that it's aimed at the lowest common denominator, and that the viewers won't buy products being advertised; the much-publicized switch to TV-PG doesn't change this), and the only real value is to pump up the network average for prime time. Since UPN and its successors-in-interest are already dead last, and WWE numbers are and were low enough by broadcast standards not to make any difference, they have no compunction about moving/canceling wrestling programming

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewedByTheNetwork