WWE SmackDown is finally going back to a two-hour format.
SmackDown has been airing in three-hour blocks since the January 3 episode, when it moved to USA Network as part of WWE’s new broadcast agreement. It was previously reported that SmackDown would return to its two-hour format after an extended run of three-hour episodes. A later update indicated SmackDown would “most likely” revert to two hours in June.
However, PWInsider.com recently reported that SmackDown will return to a two-hour format on July 4. This show will also be pre-taped after the June 30 RAW television taping in Pittsburgh. WWE confirmed this report, announcing that WWE SmackDown will return to a two-hour format.
Michael Cole made the announcement during Friday’s episode of SmackDown airing live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Cole simply addressed the format change between segments, making the announcement before transitioning to a recap of what went down between Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair last week.
A big title change also took place on this week’s episode of SmackDown. Catch up on everything that went down here.
Triple H highlights the ‘sweet spot’ of WWE programming
Triple H addressed SmackDown’s run time when he appeared on the Pat McAfee Show in January. There, he discussed his preference for the length of RAW and SmackDown and said that the “sweet spot” is somewhere between two and three hours. During the appearance, he also confirmed SmackDown will go back to a two-hour format, but didn’t confirm when.
“I think it’s by what the content needs to be. It’s no different to me than — look, there are some parameters that we have to hit,” Triple H explained. “But it’s no different than [other scripted] episodic television shows. Sometimes there’s an episode that’s 45 minutes, the next week it’s an hour, right? It depends on what you need to put into that show.
“Sometimes when we do three-hour shows there’s a little bit of collapsible stuff in there that’s put in on purpose. It’s a little bit of fat in the show that you can trim off if you need to. But a two-hour show, man, there’s a lot of times when we get done with a two-hour show that I think, ‘I would have liked to put more in there. I would have liked to give more people the opportunity to tell these stories that we didn’t get a chance to do.’ So somewhere between that two and three-hour window, to me, is the sweet spot.”
