Over the last couple of weeks, WWE and its broadcast partners have finalized plans for the company's three primetime programs.
Monday Night Raw will finish its 2nd tour of duty on USA Network in December, not September, as the deal with Netflix doesn't kick in until January, which would've left the flagship of WWE-TV in limbo for three months. Realizing this, NBC-Universal-Comcast, USA's parent company, and TKO Holdings, WWE's parent, agreed to leave Raw where it is until the end of the year, meaning the earliest it'll debut on Netflix would be January 6.
NXT will leave USA following the September 24 episode---we think---to transition to the CW. CW President Mark Schwartz, who had Smackdown on his roster from 2006-10, said the bookend shows would have taken the network over budget. Since NXT originates from one venue only, in suburban Orlando, it saves money for both WWE & the CW. Remember, too, that CW is now owned by Nexstar Media, which owns some stations, including WTEN in the 518, and has a lower operating budget than Paramount or Warner Bros. Discovery, the previous co-owners of the network.
As you can see, CW has not established when NXT, one of the linchpins of their developing line of sports programming, will launch there. It'll be either October 1 or 8 as of now.
Smackdown shifts back to USA, where it aired on Tuesdays from 2016-9, on September 13, and will stay on Friday nights. Fox will fill the void on Fridays with college football, giving them back-to-back nights of NCAA action, and, the shift from Fox to USA also means Smackdown will no longer have to be bumped to a cable channel when the World Series or a college bowl game takes place.
Moving Raw to Netflix was the riskiest part of this deal, but as long as WWE wants to try to revisit the Attitude Era (1998-2002), this would be the best place to make the flagship more adult in content. However, I would suspect that if there are fans who don't have access to Netflix, WWE would be wise to angle for repurposing rights with either Peacock or another streamer......!
Besides, Raw traditionally gets killed in the ratings in the final 3-4 months of the year due to Monday Night Football and other factors, so that's eliminated with the move to Netflix.
To clear room for NXT, the CW is moving Superman & Lois, entering its 4th & final season, to Thursdays for a 10 episode run (October-December---we think). Well, at least I'll have two reasons to watch CW.....
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