WWE SMACK DOWN HISTORY

WWF SmackDown! was set up to compete against WCW's Thursday night show, Thunder. SmackDown! first appeared on April 29, 1999 using the Raw set as a single television special on UPN. On August 26, 1999, SmackDown! officially debuted on UPN. Like WCW Thunder, SmackDown! was recorded on Tuesdays and then broadcast on Thursdays. The new WWF show was so popular that WCW moved Thunder to Wednesdays so that it would not compete directly. Throughout the show's early existence, The Rock routinely called SmackDown! "his show", in reference to the fact that the name was derived from one of his catchphrases, "Lay the smack down".[15] In March 2002, WWF implemented the "brand extension", under which Raw and SmackDown! would have separate rosters of performers that are exclusive to their respective programs and events, and be positioned in-universe as competing "brands" (in a manner reminiscent of athletic conferences).[16]

In the 2004–05 season, SmackDown had an average viewership of 5.1 million viewers, making it UPN's second-highest-rated series behind America's Next Top Model. With the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, SmackDown moved into its former timeslot on Friday nights for the 2005–06 season, beginning September 9, 2005. WWE subsequently announced that the show would be renamed Friday Night SmackDown! to emphasize the new scheduling.[17]

Move to The CW, MyNetworkTV Edit
In January 2006, CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment announced that UPN and The WB would merge to form a new network known as The CW that fall. As part of the announcement, The CW announced that it would renew Friday Night SmackDown for two more seasons as part of its launch lineup—which focused primarily on the strongest programs of its two predecessors.[18] On September 22, 2006, Friday Night SmackDown! aired its first episode on The CW.

The CW declined to renew SmackDown, resulting in the series being picked up in October 2008 by MyNetworkTV—a second new network formed by Fox Entertainment Group, primarily consisting of former UPN and The WB affiliates who were unable to join The CW.[19] Retaining its previous Friday-night time slot, the season premiere of SmackDown on MyNetworkTV was the highest-rated program in the fledgling network's history, with 3.2 million viewers.[20] On March 20, 2009, SmackDown celebrated its 500th episode.[21]

Move to Syfy, USA Network Edit
On October 1, 2010, as part of a new deal with NBC Universal, SmackDown moved to Syfy on October 1, 2010, retaining its Friday night timeslot.[7] Prior to this premiere of SmackDown, Michael Cole hosted a "pre-game" show. The move saw Syfy paying close to $30 million for the show as opposed to the $20 million paid by its former network MyNetworkTV.[8]

During the August 29, 2011 episode of Raw, WWE dissolved the brand extension, thus allowing performers to appear on Raw and SmackDown at any given time without restriction.[22] The October 14, 2011, episode made SmackDown the second-longest-running weekly episodic television series of American television history (behind Raw, which surpassed that mark on August 1, 2005). On January 18, 2013, SmackDown celebrated its 700th episode.

On October 10, 2014, SmackDown celebrated its 15-year anniversary.[14] To help celebrate the 15th anniversary, Stephanie McMahon came out first, then Laurinaitis and Long, respectively, the latter of which kept one-upping each other for the main event of the night until McMahon decided to keep the 15-man tag team match that Long suggested, on the condition Laurinaitis and Long be the captains of each team like at WrestleMania XXVIII.[23] Long's team won the match.[24] On December 16, 2014, SmackDown aired a live 800th episode special on Syfy's sister channel USA Network, SuperSmackDown Live!, featuring a main event between Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins.[25]

In January 2015, SmackDown returned to a Thursday time slot. The return to Thursday nights was expected to help attract a younger audience to Syfy, as well as more premium advertising dollars from marketers, who tend to spend more to promote their products, especially film releases, on the night as consumers head into the weekend.[26] The last SmackDown airing on a Friday night had 2.43 million viewers with a 0.7 share.[27] On January 7, 2016, SmackDown moved to USA Network, remaining on Thursday nights.[10][11][12] With the move, all top three WWE programs—Raw, SmackDown and Tough Enough—would air on the same network for the first time ever.[11][28]

On May 25, 2016, as part of the re-implementation of the brand extension and split between Raw and SmackDown, it was announced that SmackDown would become a live program on Tuesday nights.[29] On the July 11, 2016 episode of Raw, Vince McMahon named Shane McMahon the commissioner of SmackDown.[30] Then next week on Raw, Daniel Bryan was revealed as the new SmackDown General Manager.[31] On July 22, 2016, General Manager Daniel Bryan revealed the new SmackDown logo on his official Twitter page, renaming the show SmackDown Live.[32] On April 10, 2018, SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon announced that Daniel Bryan was back as a full-time WWE wrestler and named Paige the new General Manager.[33]

Move to Fox Edit
On June 26, 2018, Fox announced a five-year agreement to air SmackDown, in a deal worth $205 million per year. SmackDown would debut on October 4, 2019, with its first episode being the 20th Anniversary special. The episode also marks the return of SmackDown to Friday nights and the return of WWE programming to Fox for the first time since the network aired the November 14, 1992 episode of Saturday Night's Main Event.[34][35][36] The agreement came as WWE's previous broadcast deal with USA Network to air both SmackDown and WWE Raw was set to expire, and as Fox has increasingly emphasized live sports programming and non-scripted entertainment in the wake of its then-upcoming sale of its in-house studios to Disney. Fox had hoped to acquire Raw for the Fox network and SmackDown for FS1.[37][38] However, amid a competitive bidding situation, NBCUniversal focused its efforts on renewing Raw, freeing up Fox to pursue SmackDown.[39] In particular, Fox promised a larger amount of promotion for SmackDown during its sports programming, as well as a WWE-oriented studio show (WWE Backstage) on FS1.[40]

Fox began an advertising campaign by Wieden+Kennedy for the move, "We're All Superstars", to coincide with the beginning of football season, revealing a new logo and the reinstatement of the Friday Night SmackDown title.[41] Friday Night SmackDown saw huge ratings increase since moving to Fox, adding an extra 1.6 million from the week before, but also saw a 25% drop the week after to 2.88 million viewers.[citation needed]

The October 25, 2019 episode was moved to FS1 due to Fox airing game 3 of the 2019 World Series. An hour-long version of the episode aired on Fox the following Sunday afternoon.[42][43]

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, WWE announced that both SmackDown and Raw would suspend on-location broadcasts, and air from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida with no audience, with SmackDown doing so for the first time on March 13, 2020. The ensuing episode also featured Triple H as a guest commentator, and an encore presentation of the Elimination Chamber match for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship from the titular pay-per-view the previous Sunday.[44][45]