Major Update On WWE's Holiday TV Schedule
What does the festive season mean for WWE SmackDown's 24 & 31 December episodes?
The holiday season will bring significant changes to WWE's television schedule.
As originally reported by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, the episode of SmackDown due to air on Christmas Eve (24 December) will not go out live. This show will instead be taped in advance in Chicago, Illinois on 17 December. WWE will also run a live SmackDown broadcast that evening, meaning attendees at the Allstate Arena will be getting double their money's worth.
As far as New Year's Eve (31 December) goes, WWE will not air a live SmackDown episode that night either. Instead, this show will be a "year in review" - and will also be preempted from FOX to FS1.
Airing on FS1 (a more obscure and harder to find channel than FOX) typically results in significant viewership declines for SmackDown. This latest preemption is due to New Year's Ever shows airing on FOX, with Nick Khan, Vince McMahon, and Kevin Dunn making the deicision not to host a regular SmackDown show on FS1.
WWE starts 2022 with the Day 1 pay-per-view in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday 1 January. SmackDown will return to its regular schedule after this.