• by Wayne Friedman , February 11, 2008

The CW is loosening its wrestling programming hold--ending its long-time Friday night series, WWE "Smackdown."

In a statement, the network said: "After a successful decade of "Smackdown" on both UPN and The CW, The CW and World Wrestling Entertainment have agreed to conclude our partnership... WWE "Smackdown" will continue to air on The CW until the conclusion of the 2007-08 broadcast season."

Although not always in keeping with UPN's or CW's brand, "Smackdown" remained a fixture on Friday nights because it brought in the tough-to-reach male 18-34 viewers.

In recent years, those ratings have been declining--most recently, "Smackdown" was at a steady but not spectacular 1.5 rating for its 18-34 viewers. Some programming analysts say there were fewer big-name performers--such as The Rock (Dwayne Johnson).

In the early years, "Smackdown" was a program time buy by WWE, in which CW did not control or sell national advertising time. Later, UPN was able to negotiate a program deal like virtually all others on network TV, for a license fee. UPN then sold the national advertising inventory in the show, which gave the network some leverage among young-skewing advertisers.

Declining ratings, however, made it less attractive to UPN/CW. CW still made good money from it, but it did not help to market CW's other prime-time nights.

For example, the network could not use "Smackdown"'s valuable airtime to promote its mostly young-women oriented shows--like "Gossip Girl." It attempted to promote "Pussycat Dolls" reality series--a TV show somewhat closer in content to WWE--but the network got few new viewers from those efforts.