The big talk at the moment (from Smackdown colour commentator Jerry Lawler, amongst others) is that Smackdown may go completely live every week, just as RAW does, and may move back to Friday nights. But while its a fairly obvious fix to the tried and tested Tuesday tapings tradition (try saying that seven times really fast), is being completely live every week on Fridays really the way to go? At present, the WWE roster works Friday to Tuesday every week, with Wednesday and Thursday off: Kevin Dunns TV production crew, however, work the same schedule. The expense and logistics required to move the massive WWE television juggernaut on the road takes a whole lot of planning, and they pack between forty and fifty man hours into two and a half days. Slicing that in half having TV production travelling to and working on two live broadcasts, with taped segments and matches, Mondays and Fridays with a huge gap in between may simply not be practical. Move Smackdown back to Friday night, sure it doesnt make a vast amount of difference to ratings, but Friday Night Smackdown rolls off the tongue better, and it bookends the week with WWE programming. But why not keep the Tuesday television taping formula? Its a routine that works, and helps to keep the massive cost of travel down for the company. In the meantime, the company has run live Smackdown events in the past lets make a bigger deal out of them. Have them take place, say once every couple of months, and turn them into epic three hour live specials in a similar vein to the recent NXT Brooklyn and WWE Beast In The East events, with the whole roster at play. Transmit the full monty live on the WWE Network on Tuesday night, and an edited version of the broadcast on Friday night for free on USA. Now that the model of monthly Sunday night pay-per-views is beginning to move into the past, keeping loads of new content regularly circulating on the Network is vital. Running occasional but regular Smackdown Live Specials is one way of doing that, and it keeps the audience hopping.
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