Earlier this week, it was reported that WWE Smackdown was set to return to two hours in duration in the very near future while no specific timeline was shared, the BodySlam+ report noted it was going to happen in a few weeks.
Now there is an update on the situation with Bryan Alvarez of f4wonline.com reporting that this change is expected to occur at the beginning of July, much like it did last year. He further added that this is actually a contractual obligation that WWE has with NBCUniversal that would call for Smackdown to expand from two hours to three from January to June and shrink to two hours from July to December.
Dave Meltzer added that the contract between WWE and NBCUniversal is likely to be the way things unfold for the duration of the current media rights deal, meaning that this will be the norm for the next four years.
