The three hour weekly blue brand shows are soon to be a thing of the past.
As noted, there have been conflicting reports the past few months regarding plans for the future of the WWE SmackDown show on the USA Network.
It was reported by multiple sources that SmackDown switching to three hour weekly shows every Friday night back in September of 2024 was only going to be a temporary move. More recently, those same sources claimed that the show would actually be remaining a three hour weekly program.
Earlier this week, things changed.
In the latest USA Network schedule release, it was announced that “The Rainmaker” series would be coming to Friday nights on the channel starting on August 15 at 10/9c. This would dip into the third hour of SmackDown, which runs from 8/7c until 11/10c every Friday night.
According to an update that multiple sources have since confirmed, WWE SmackDown will officially revert back to a weekly two hour program starting on Friday, July 4, 2025. That particular episode, due to the Independence Day holiday in the United States of America, will be taped on May 30 after a live episode of WWE Raw in Pittsburgh, PA.
In another interesting note related to this story, it appears that WWE may not have even been profiting from the additional hour of weekly live programming on the USA Network, as increased revenue for the show was not mentioned on TKO investor calls, which it would be required due to it being a publicly traded company.
“I guess the way they signed the contract, they must have given USA the option,” Dave Meltzer noted via Wrestling Observer Radio at F4WOnline.com. “Because if they were making more money on the deal, it absolutely would have been said at the investors call and we would have seen it.”
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