End of Smackdown??

Clareman

From http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/news/68702/WWE-News:-WWE-and-the-CW-Network-to-Part-Ways.htm

WWE sent out the following press release this evening:

WWE Smackdown Leaves CW
STAMFORD, Conn, February 7, 2008:

After a successful decade of "SmackDown" on both UPN and The CW, World Wrestling Entertainment and The CW have agreed to conclude our partnership. Since The CW's exclusive negotiation period ran out as of last Thursday, January 31, we have been contacted and have been in negotiations with other networks. "WWE SmackDown" will continue to air on The CW until the conclusion of the 2007-08 broadcast season. We are grateful to Les Moonves, Dawn Ostroff, and their entire organization for bringing "WWE SmackDown" to millions of viewers for so many years.

don't know if there's many networks that will pick it up

chopperbyrne

I'm sure there's some networks that will be more than happy to have a WWE show.

Fozzy

That's kind of surprising I'd have thought. I don't think the broadcast season ends until around August or September though, so plenty of time yet. I might be wrong though

Clareman

I think CW is 1 of the largest networks in the US, I would go as far as to say that Smackdown gets more actual viewers than RAW, but as RAW is on cable it gets a higher rating.

Terry

****ing CW.
Those jackasses cancelled Veronica Mars.

Fozzy

Clareman wrote: »

I think CW is 1 of the largest networks in the US, I would go as far as to say that Smackdown gets more actual viewers than RAW, but as RAW is on cable it gets a higher rating.

It's close, but not quite true. Just looking at some figures, Raw did a show in December that did a 3.2 rating with a 4.8 million audience and Smackdown did a show a couple of weeks later with a 2.7 rating and the same audience. Raw is getting higher ratings than 3.2 at the moment so their audience would still be a bit higher

The Hispanic audience is very high for Smackdown, if all else fails they might end up on a Spanish-speaking network

rossie1977

smackdown is the most viewed show on CW as far as i am aware or at least a close second. Only the season premiere/few other episodes of smallville beat out smackdown in the ratings in 2007

i think this break up has more to do with WWE than CW. CW/UPN have been extremely strict on content since the beginning. The Muhammad Hassan incident really soured relations between the two.

Fozzy

rossie1977 wrote: »

i think this break up has more to do with WWE than CW. CW/UPN have been extremely strict on content since the beginning. The Muhammad Hassan incident really soured relations between the two.

I don't think it's anything to do with the content. I'd say it's more to do with the advertising rates being so low for Smackdown that they'd rather put a lower rated program in its place but they'd be able to charge higher for advertisements

Clareman

yeah, I'd say it's all about sponsorship and preception, lots of TV networks don't like wrasslin' as they think it's low brow and that people that watch it are inbreds that don't have any money to spend on luxurys, like cleaning stuff

orestes

rossie1977 wrote: »

i think this break up has more to do with WWE than CW. CW/UPN have been extremely strict on content since the beginning. The Muhammad Hassan incident really soured relations between the two.

What was the Muhammad Hussan incident? Do you mean just the character and angle in general or was there some kind of bust up or something?

Fozzy

orestes wrote: »

What was the Muhammad Hussan incident? Do you mean just the character and angle in general or was there some kind of bust up or something?

The network banned WWE from ever having Hassan on Smackdown again after Daivari got carried out by guys in masks (which the media immediately assumed were "Arabian terrorists", despite not seeing their faces) on the day of the London terrorist bombings

Vince135792003

Fozzy wrote: »

I don't think it's anything to do with the content. I'd say it's more to do with the advertising rates being so low for Smackdown that they'd rather put a lower rated program in its place but they'd be able to charge higher for advertisements

That's the issue I think.

I'm sure they'll find a home for Smackdown though.

oneofakind32

If you folks could think outside of your wrestling box for one second you would see that there is a very good reason for Smackdown leaving the CW network. No, Smackdown is by no means in danger for cancellation. I would think that it would have been the WWE who decided to end the deal. The writers guild strike is still on in the US and Smackdown, and all other wrestling TV shows, do not rely on guild writers exclusively. Vince has picked the perfect time to go looking for a new deal for SD. WWE were never happy with SD on a friday nights as there was a higher probability of being preempted by sports. Also word has it Vince want to go up against impact on thursdays. Speaking of Impact there are rumblings that spike are pushing for impact to go live. This would boost impacts rating as there would be no spoilers, bringing impact closer to the figures that SD dose on a regular basis.

Thursday Night wars anyone?

Fozzy

oneofakind32 wrote: »

I would think that it would have been the WWE who decided to end the deal.

Over on F4WOnline.com it says "Not much new on the Smackdown/CW story except that CW made the call and not WWE, and that WWE does not have a deal with another network in place yet."

The Wrestling Observer reported this:

"WWE made the announcement last night when finding out CW was going to send the news to its affiliates today, so that the word would get out. If they had a new deal in place, they would have announced it. Just to clear a few things up contractually. Legally, they can go anywhere on network or pay-TV (HBO, Showtime). No way HBO will touch them, as during the hot period, HBO talked about it, felt wrestling would be good for ratings and decided against going in that direction because they considered it low-rent programming. Showtime is possible, but it is in so few homes that it would be a killer to the brand. On cable, they can only go to stations under the NBC Universal umbrella, like USA and Sci-Fi. Spike or TBS are contractually prohibited. The best bet seems to be MyNetworkTV, which is in basically the same number of homes as CW, but desperately needs a show that will draw ratings. It would make sense for MNTV to move the show back to Thursday, because you should have your star show on a night viewership is highest. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out."

So if they can't persuade NBC to take on another wrestling show then they're either going to be on a network that less people overall watch or one that less people overall are actually able to watch. It makes no sense for WWE to have willingly tried to leave the CW network

I wouldn't be surprised to see Smackdown go to Thursday nights, but unless TNA changes a lot in eight months I expect Smackdown to slaughter TNA in the ratings

Bubs101

oneofakind32 wrote: »

If you folks could think outside of your wrestling box for one second you would see that there is a very good reason for Smackdown leaving the CW network. No, Smackdown is by no means in danger for cancellation. I would think that it would have been the WWE who decided to end the deal. The writers guild strike is still on in the US and Smackdown, and all other wrestling TV shows, do not rely on guild writers exclusively. Vince has picked the perfect time to go looking for a new deal for SD. WWE were never happy with SD on a friday nights as there was a higher probability of being preempted by sports. Also word has it Vince want to go up against impact on thursdays. Speaking of Impact there are rumblings that spike are pushing for impact to go live. This would boost impacts rating as there would be no spoilers, bringing impact closer to the figures that SD dose on a regular basis.

Thursday Night wars anyone?

The writers strike effectively ended as of 2 days ago so that can't be the reason but if Smackdown went up agaist Impact it would destroy it even though I think Impact would take slightly more viewers away from Smackdown than vice-cersa

Fozzy

Here's an article looking at the CW network dropping Smackdown: http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/networktv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003708685

The CW insiders said the network was not exactly excited about renewing, since the Smackdown adult 18-34 rating this season had decreased to a 1.4, which made it only the seventh highest-rated show on the network in prime time.

Another issue that led to the CW’s decision to drop Smackdown was that the show was entirely young-male oriented and then network was not able to use it’s Friday night telecast to promote its female-skewing Sunday programming.

Clareman

Appartantly CW choose not to hold onto Smackdown cause Smackdown wasn't "holding" onto viewers, people were only watch Smackdown and nothing else on CW, also the 18-25 age bracket was down.

WWE are annoied cause they are after spending a fortune on bringing in HD

orestes

Clareman wrote: »

Appartantly CW choose not to hold onto Smackdown cause Smackdown wasn't "holding" onto viewers, people were only watch Smackdown and nothing else on CW, also the 18-25 age bracket was down.

Surely having them watch just one program on your network is better than them watching nothing on it?

Fozzy

orestes wrote: »

Surely having them watch just one program on your network is better than them watching nothing on it?

It wasn't one of the highest rated shows on the network anymore. CW seems to be a young female oriented channel, which SD isn't. If they replace SD with a program that young females are likely to watch, then they stand a better chance of getting those viewers to watch other things on their channel. I'm sure advertising comes into it somewhere too, their regular advertisers probably wouldn't want to advertise during SD

Fozzy

Smackdown will air on MyNetworkTV from September: http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/smackdownnewhome

That channel doesn't have nearly as many viewers as CW, but it is in just as many homes. I can't imagine that WWE are getting paid as much for it, but it's probably their best choice given the circumstances

rossie1977

mynetworktv is what is left of UPN after the creation of CW. Its owned by fox so they will be paying big money for the show

Fozzy

rossie1977 wrote: »

Its owned by fox so they will be paying big money for the show

I doubt it. There was no real big money competition so it's not as if they were in a bidding war for Smackdown. It's got to be a worse deal than the one WWE had with CW