SmackDown! moving to SyFy

[Xero]

From PWInsider:

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that World Wrestling Entertainment's Friday Night Smackdown will move from its current home on MyNetworkTV to SyFy.

The report noted that it is believed SyFy will be paying $30 million for the series, up from the $20 million CW was believed to have been paying.

Smackdown will debut on SyFy this October with an official announcement scheduled for later in the week. SyFy already airs WWE NXT on Tuesdays in the timeslot previously held by WWE's now-defunct incarnation of ECW.

The move would take Smackdown to cable for the first time in its lifespan. The series debuted as a pilot special in summer 1999 for the now-defunct UPN Network and was picked up as a regular series that September. The report notes the series will remain in its Friday 8 PM Eastern timeslot.

While WWE has the rights to shop the series anywhere on network TV, they could only move the series to a network owned by NBC-Universal on cable.

Smackdown was the lone remaining "original" program on MyNetworkTV, which had been reduced to a collection of independent stations and had dropped it's network status in February 2009, now referring to itself as a "programming service."

Smackdown's first episode on MyNetworkTV on 10/3/08 was the highest rated programming in the history of the network, scoring a 3.2.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...-to-syfy-.html

Update:

From PWInsider:

A source just confirmed that with the planned move to the SyFy Network this Fall, Smackdown will also begin weekly replays on Universal HD, which airs Raw and NXT on Saturday evenings.