Nick Khan: WWE open to moving Raw off Mondays, third hour of SmackDown
WWE CEO Nick Khan continues to do the conference rounds this month, saying during a Tuesday talk that the company "doesn't anticipate" Raw will change from its weekly three-hour format while also saying it could move off Mondays if needed.
He also said they are open to a third hour of SmackDown.
Khan was a guest at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media & Communications Conference.
During his talk, he again brought up that the 10 PM hour for Raw is under consideration for some adjustments that would appeal to a more adult audience.
He confirmed they are still in the exclusive negotiating window with NBCUniversal on renewal rights for the Monday night institution while they are now out of that window with Fox. Those windows began during WrestleMania 39 weekend in early-April.
It's unknown what other entities have shown interest as of now. Khan has continued to remain bullish on the TV rights interest for both properties from both broadcast and streaming entities.
He gave no indication Tuesday as to when a deal could be done with any interested party. There's no rush for it to be done as they want to do what is best to maximize the value for WWE.
In a talk last week, Khan said they would be open to SmackDown moving off Friday nights while referencing how Amazon is attempting to program specific nights of the week for their Prime streaming service. He said Tuesday their content could go any night of the week, mentioning how Raw could also move off Mondays.
WWE and Endeavor's UFC are expected to merge in the second half of the year to form a new publicly traded company called TKO. The deal has to pass regulatory measures first in order to do that.
Other interesting notes:
Khan said he feels NXT could be its own third brand with more crossover from Raw and SmackDown and be more than just a developmental brand.He also said that more content could be coming with "an additional show" on another night of the week: "Once that all of (TV rights) gets situated, we'll look at other nights of the week to develop new content as well." Some of that new content could be more adult-themed to satisfy the audience who is looking for it.In talking about the future with UK TV rights, Khan mentioned they have over 150,000 WWE Network subscribers at $10 USD per month in the region.He said the goal is for every pay-per-view/PLE to have a site subsidy fee like Cardiff, Wales, with Clash at the Castle, and Backlash in Puerto Rico.He said they see spikes on both Peacock and YouTube for older events in the lead-up to the new events (i.e. WrestleMania). Click Here: tonga rugby shirts