Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch on why Fox didn't renew rights to WWE Smackdown, from Fox's earnings call this morning.
Murdoch said Fox didn't drive enough advertising revenue "due to the audience of the WWE". Seemingly this means the number of viewers and probably also the ad rates. Maybe audience income level is a factor? (AdAge reported yesterday Smackdown ads cost about $51k per unit in 2023, slightly less than ABC's Shark Tank which it regularly beats head-to-head in P18-49.)
Fox additionally wasn't able to generate enough retransmission revenue related to the show, meaning they weren't able to charge cable/satellite carriers much more to carry Fox networks specifically because they had Smackdown.
