Variety reported an exclusive story that Smackdown will be going live every week on USA Network starting on July 19, with the show once again moving nights and will now air on Tuesdays in its regular time slot of 8PM EST.
“There is a huge appetite among our viewers for live programming and the ability to move ‘Smackdown’ to a live format brings a new level of excitement and helps truly eventize this every week,” said Chris McCumber, president of entertainment networks at NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment.
Smackdown was rumored to be moving to a live broadcast once it changed over to USA Network from SyFy but it never happened. The only change was that they moved away from the Friday night “death slot” to Thursdays but still airing on tape since the show kept being recorded on Tuesday nights.
Live broadcasts typically boost TV ratings because there would be no spoilers and fans who typically check spoilers for Smackdown don’t tune in because they know what’s going to happen. Moving to Tuesdays will also mean that WWE avoids the popular Thursday night NFL football game however it spells bad news for TNA since Impact airs on the same day over at POP.
