Friday night's suck.

[Yrrab]

And don't get me wrong, Smackdown is damned sweet, even if I do prefer RAW. But there's something about RAW being during the work week that makes it so much easier for me to watch.

Why is there no interest in returning Smackdown to Thursday nights? I see all kinds of arguments over Smackdown's ratings, be it someone can't draw or it's stale or it's not live. But realitistcally, it's on a damn Friday. I feel like Smackdown would be much more enjoyable to watch if I wasn't planning on going out and doing something, or if I wasn't returning home from a night out, drunk and plastered, watching it on a DVR.

I truely feel that Smackdown's ratings could soar if they'd just switch back to Thursdays. Another argument could be that it's the network they're on. I'd buy that one too, but I feel that it's more to do with it being on Friday than which network it's on.

What do you guys think? Am I being biased because I prefer going out on Friday nights and am just bitter that I have to watch a great show on DVR, after the fact?

 

[Dagger Dias]

I think more people have issues with it not being live rather than it being on a ftidaym. I can see your point though about Raw being a way to make a long monday more ebjoyable while there are many who would rather go out friday. If they moved Smackdown to thursdays they would have to change its name to Thursday Night Smackdown. Plus it would be competing with a certain other show where they claim that wrestling matters. That aside, there is no real benefit to moving it to thursdays because it would still be taped which is more of a reason for less people tuning in.

 

[JGlass]

I'm in the same boat as you. I like Raw more than Smackdown, but I love watching Smackdown just as much as Raw (I really only like Raw better because they have my favorite wrestlers), but I usually only manage to catch one or two Smackdowns a month because I like to go out to a bar or to a movie on Friday nights.

That said, there's really no better place for Smackdown than Friday nights. Thursdays would not work out for Smackdown, as Thursday is one of the biggest nights for television. Smackdown would lose a lot of viewers to the superior programming on network television. The same can be said for Tuesday and Wednesday depending on which season it is.

On the other hand, Friday is a notoriously bad night for television watching, so Smackdown has little to no competition from the major networks. That means parents are more willing to let their kids watch wrestling because they don't want to catch American Idol or Modern Family or CSI Pawtucket. It also means that, if the older audience happens to be home on any given Friday, they won't be tuning into network programming instead of Smackdown.

I think the WWE has pretty much resigned themselves to getting low to mid 1.0s in the Nielsen system with Smackdown, which means they won't be looking to move anytime soon, for fear that a move to a different night would do more harm than good.

 

[FSWWE]

J-Glass pretty much said it all...
I will give my example to every poster in WrestleZone.
I'm from Portugal and here it's already 11.11 p.m
So that means that when RAW/SmackDown starts in the USA, here it is 4 a.m, and I have school at Tuesdays and I like to sleep, so I can't watch it in the same time as you.

And I'm a bigger wrestling fan, and I only watch the shows in the day before, but I still do and I still love them both (SD! Mark here)
I just don't give a fuck if it's live or not, and if you stay out of the Spoilers and the Plans, you will have an incredible show 2 days a week.
It's just me!
WWE target is the Kids, we all know that, and Kids don't usually get out at night or in a Friday.
They are kids, and in Saturday the school is closed so parents let them watch is show till more later.

For teens and adults, well we all want to get out on Fridays, so do it!!
DVR the show, get out of the spoilers and the plans, come home, go to sleep, wake up, turn on the TV, eat your cereals and watch SD! is that too hard?
SD! ratings is increasing in a weekly basis and as the summer and the vacations start, people will get out everyday of the week, so if you truly are a fan, Friday nights is the night of and you watch the show!!

 

[Jack-Hammer]

My preference for one over the other often fluccuates, depending upon what's happening at any given time. There are times I prefer SD! and times I prefer Raw. At the moment, I'm finding SD! a more enjoyable show from an all around perspective, but it's close. One reason why I give SD! the edge at this point is the current World Heavyweight Championship situation. It's just a great overall scene right now with all the guys involved doing some of the best work they've ever done. Another reason is that SD! usually has stronger wrestling content. SmackDown!, for most of the given year, has a formula that just simply works for it. It generally has one or two major promo segments, angles & feuds are usually pushed along smoothly and it almost always has at least solid wrestling content.

Raw being live and being at the beginning of the work week can be a definite plus in my view. You don't know exactly what's going to happen and that does give Raw a type of energy that SD! simply can't match because it's taped. Even though I don't read spoilers for SD!, the fact that I can in the first place makes SD! seem less dynamic in some ways. The idea of knowing what ultimately happens on a show several days before it actually airs just doesn't give it that sense of urgency I guess.

Back in late December, I think Christmas week to be exact, SD! aired live on USA Tuesday night rather than it's usual timeslot on Syfy. Aside from being a helluva show that had the sort of dynamic feel that live television can generate, the show drew almost 4 million viewers. It aired on a much stronger network, on a different night of the week and was live. If SD! had those three things going for it and generally stuck to the formula that they've been using for a long while now, it'd be an overall much better show than Raw in my opinion.