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WWE Network gains 33k new subscribers since Wrestlemania (Q2 results)

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B

bigkrev

Member
jmdajr said:
they have already been firing people left and right...
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I'm more talking about office, not TV talent. Like the stockholders calling for HHH's head, who is someone, that in a traditional sense, has no right having the position he has (ie, no actual experience running a big company).
 
P

Patryn

Member
Basileus777 said:
I don't understand, it hasn't been six months since launch yet, how could every addition not be a net addition for now?
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Supposedly, a bunch of people signed up with pre-paid debit cards and the like that didn't have enough money loaded to cover the whole 6-month period. When the cards ran dry, the network could no longer charge those people. So they managed to get around the commitment.
 
E

Entropia

No One Remembers
Avon Barksdale said:
The press release stated that the Network will be available on all cable, satellite and IPTV providers across Canada.
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Which means that I require a subscription to either of those services, which I don't have, and nor would I subscribe to cable/satellite/IPTV just for that.

I'd rather just pay the $9.99/month for the WWE Network that I can watch on my Computer, Roku, etc.
 
B

bigkrev

Member
Clipping from the Observer when the number was first announced back in March

But like the first day estimates, it’s hard to know what that means. Some were saying that after only six weeks, they were already two-thirds of the way toward their year-end goal. But they were those not really understanding the pro wrestling business. The single biggest lure of the network until the end of the year, by far, is WrestleMania for $9.99. While there will be trickling in new subscribers between now and the end of the year, and if you are a serious fan, the service is easily worth the money, at least at first, are there 333,000 people who did not feel WrestleMania for $9.99 is worth it that are going to think the network is? There is no answer for sure until the end of the year.

Those we spoke with internally groaned when the number came out, and it was widely considered a disappointment even though it can’t be publicly spun that way. In the end, the network is going to be a success. In time, there will be enough people who will buy new television sets better equipped for this, and there are things they can tweak. Given the supposed U.S. number of $9.99 per month orders is only slightly larger than the orders of last year’s WrestleMania on regular PPV (662,000 was the total North American number, but that includes roughly ten percent Canadian so the U.S. & Puerto Rico figure would be about 600,000), the question is asked how many new people out there, having turned it down for Mania, are now going to get it?

Another part of the situation is how many of the 667,282 subscribers are actually from the U.S. There were two first-day surveys that came up identical, one that we did, which came up that 17% of the first day orders came from outside the U.S. Some of them were shut down, but many were not. Another survey we did the day after Mania showed only 63% of subscribers to the WWE Network came from the U.S., (of the rest, 17% were from Canada and 12% from the United Kingdom), but that number sounds very low to the point I trust it only slightly more than the WWE’s own survey about how half the homes in the U.S. have a pro wrestling fan. But even if we say that 15% of the number is not from the U.S., and that may be a conservative estimate, that leaves a 567,000 U.S. figure, which is very bad if it’s close to the mark. When the numbers were first estimated, the belief was they would only draw this year from the U.S. market, leading to major international growth in 2015.

That would also indicate that the growth next year from international may be far less than expected because the super hardcore WWE fans around the world have already figured out how to get it.

Still, in time, people will be less reluctant to purchase services like this. There will be people who will drop after six months, particularly since that will be September or October and the next big event, Royal Rumble, doesn’t come until late January. Plus, it’s football season, and a solid percentage of casual wrestling fans lose interest that time of the year, but who knows what percentage of those casual fans even purchased the network. There will be others who trickle in and others who may get it and just figure that they don’t have the time to watch all the programming. Eventually the number will be steady, and in the long run, who knows, as 24/7 Classics on Demand reached a certain level and then slowly declined from there, even as it expanded into new cable companies and international. If it is slow to hit break-even, or even if it is break-even, there are things that can be done to help turn a profit, such as increase the price (there have already been surveys aimed at the Canadian market for next year asking about an $11.99 price), or do the original idea, which is all PPVs except the big four, or all PPVs except WrestleMania, going forward, which may slightly lower network revenue but they’ll pick it up with the $70 buys for WrestleMania.

But the WWE Network was not sold to Wall Street, or anyone, as this idea to break even. It was to be a financial game changer, the first of its kind. As it turns out, Major League Baseball, with 3 million orders already, was the game changer. Nobody was watching more closely than UFC. As noted, if they came out and did huge numbers based on putting Mania on PPV, UFC would have been fools to ignore the message. The message, loud and clear, is that, at least now, and probably in the foreseeable future, they would be fools to put their PPVs on their own version of the network, Fight Pass. The idea that by pricing shows so much cheaper, they open up so many more people to buy, appears to be a fallacy. In 2014, WWE had the same, if not less people watching WrestleMania for $9.99 coming with months of programming, than they did the year before at six to seven times that price. More likely, that won’t be the case next year. Some people, probably few, didn’t order figuring the show would crash, which in the majority of cases, didn’t happen. Some double-dipped, buying the network and the PPV, but the stream not crashing is likely to lead to that not happening for future PPV shows.

Internally, WWE has budgeted that they will receive $78.6 million in network revenue this year. According to one person with access to figures, out of the $9.99, with splits to carriers that can get 30% of the orders (those ordering directly through the WWE web site have no such splits), the estimate is WWE is getting about $8.75 per month off the average buy. That’s total revenue, not profit. Given that the service will be a paid service for nine months this year, it means they were expecting to average 1 million orders per month over the course of the year to meet budget. That is not going to happen. And with start-up costs, even if they got that average, the expectation was the profit from the entire company for the year would only be $9 million.

They were also budgeting that the pay-per-view business would be down to $47.1 million this year. In layman’s terms, they are projecting a 40% drop in PPV revenue. Given they are expecting no drop internationally, the projection is they would maintain 47 percent of the North American PPV business, meaning WrestleMania, if projections are accurate and would have hit 630,000 domestic and 420,000 international buys this year for a non-Rock show based on the Mania name, that you’d keep the 420,000 internationals (which is unlikely because a lot more international than expected have the network) but have 295,000 domestic buys. In other words, WWE is budgeting 715,000 worldwide buys for WrestleMania this year from traditional means.

Conversely, for other shows you would expect domestic PPV numbers to be between 40,000 and 70,000 for the B shows, and about 97,000 for SummerSlam. If the numbers end up higher, cannibalization is lower than expectations. If they are lower, then cannibalization for this year is higher.

For 2015, the network is budgeted for $154.9 million in gross revenue. This is for a network available worldwide. To hit that figure, they have to average 1.5 million worldwide subscribers per month, so the idea is they will start the year at 1 million and end it at 2 million. At that point, they are expecting the PPV’s internationally to fall off greatly, and 70% total cannibalization in all the PPV markets.
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Good Luck
 
J

jmdajr

Member
bigkrev said:
I'm more talking about office, not TV talent. Like the stockholders calling for HHH's head, who is someone, that in a traditional sense, has no right having the position he has (ie, no actual experience running a big company).
Click to expand...

eh? HHH is in charge of talent as far as I know.

And office people are getting the axe next.
 
E

Entropia

No One Remembers
vince-mcmahon-depressed-o.gif
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
I was expecting 750k, and even then I felt I was being a bit too pessimistic.

700k is fucking incredible lol

Also, they deserve to fail if that Canada shit is true. Fuck Rogers.
 
R

Rapstah

Member
WWE Studios is profitable now, but the way I remember it it lost a lot of money at some point so it's never going profitable overall.

Correct me if I'm thinking of the XFL.
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
This is a huge disaster.

I also find it hilarious how so many people are saying they'll join only when Nitro finally hits the airwaves. It's just ironic.
 
B

BigDug13

Member
I don't understand why they refuse to release the Attitude Era stuff. What's the point in a "slow rollout" for a service where you simply choose what you want to watch anytime? Are people actually watching the live streamed schedule and not fishing for the content they want to watch?

By not getting it done in the first 6 months, they've doomed themselves to mass cancelations from the first batch of subscribers here soon.
 
L

Liu Kang Baking A Pie

Member
RP912 said:
This is really ugly. If I was Vince I would just scrap the whole entire thing... or bring raw/smackdown to the network and say fuck cable.
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The network is fine. If they went back to some dated model, I'd just never watch any wrestling again.

It's the right idea, but the execution isn't there. Barely any original content, missing all of the actual things people would want it for outside of PPVs, and no added features at all in a goddamn half year. It also doesn't help that every PPV since Wrestlemania has been the drizzling shits.
 
H

HIGH DEF JEFF

Banned
I wonder where I factor in. I'm a subscriber since Day 1, have it set to "Dont Auto Renew" and have no interest in renewing till the Rumble.
 
P

PHOENIXZERO

Member
I could understand not having the Attitude Era stuff up if they started at say 1985 and kicked off with all the shows and major events of the year for the WWF and WCW and expanded from there until they got to the point of having multiple shows and a major event every month to slow down a little but how they've done it is ridiculous.
 
R

RP912

Banned
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
The network is fine. If they went back to some dated model, I'd just never watch any wrestling again.

It's the right idea, but the execution isn't there. Barely any original content, missing all of the actual things people would want it for outside of PPVs, and no added features at all in a goddamn half year. It also doesn't help that every PPV since Wrestlemania has been the drizzling shits.
Click to expand...


Payback and some parts of mitb were actually good but yea...


The problem with the network is the lack of 24/7 coverage. It feels like a bunch of shows on shuffle mode with old segments and interviews. They need to go deeper. I'm talking about live shows where they talk about the world of wwe and other wrestling promotions (fuck competition). Add some movies like the classic No Holds Barred and just put on strength in the ppvs. How the hell the wwe wants people to subscribe when the damn ppvs feel like 3 hour raws with title shots?


Bottom line if you want to market the network for a wrestling network...then treat it like a wrestling network. It's kind of sad when they looking for the soul of WCW to bail them out when it's the same company that almost put them out of business...such irony.
 
C

Couleurs

Member
BigDug13 said:
I don't understand why they refuse to release the Attitude Era stuff. What's the point in a "slow rollout" for a service where you simply choose what you want to watch anytime? Are people actually watching the live streamed schedule and not fishing for the content they want to watch?

By not getting it done in the first 6 months, they've doomed themselves to mass cancelations from the first batch of subscribers here soon.
Click to expand...

I don't have access to the network from work so I can't check on my own, but have they been blurring the old WWF logo from Attitude Era PPVs like they used to do for DVD releases? Having to blur logos from Raws would be the only major hold-up I can think of, otherwise I really don't get what they are thinking.
 
M

MikeJAMoran

Member
Couleurs said:
I don't have access to the network from work so I can't check on my own, but have they been blurring the old WWF logo from Attitude Era PPVs like they used to do for DVD releases? Having to blur logos from Raws would be the only major hold-up I can think of, otherwise I really don't get what they are thinking.
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No, they have an agreement with the WWF about it. It's fine. I've been watching 93 Raws and they have the logo.
 
T

thiscoldblack

Unconfirmed Member
33k since Wrestlemania sounds really bad.

I'm not really sure if to keep the subscription or not. Bringing more Attitude era and WCW Nitro would keep me subbed, though.
 
R

RBH

Member
WWE Studios revenue decreased to $1.7 million from $2.1 million in the prior year quarter due primarily to the timing of results from the Company’s portfolio of movies. Revenue recognized in the current year quarter was primarily associated with our 2013 slate of film releases. WWE Studios' movie portfolio generated a loss of $0.2 million in the quarter compared to a loss of $0.4 million in the prior year quarter. Recent movies, such as Scooby Doo! WrestleMania Mystery (direct-to-DVD), Oculus (theatrical), and Road to Paloma (direct-to-DVD) released in March, April, and July 2014, respectively, have shown performances that are in-line with expectations.
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jboOCx1HIKw37A.png



http://digitaljournal.com/pr/2092714#ixzz393CVykqG
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
RP912 said:
The problem with the network is the lack of 24/7 coverage. It feels like a bunch of shows on shuffle mode with old segments and interviews. They need to go deeper. I'm talking about live shows where they talk about the world of wwe and other wrestling promotions (fuck competition). Add some movies like the classic No Holds Barred and just put on strength in the ppvs. How the hell the wwe wants people to subscribe when the damn ppvs feel like 3 hour raws with title shots?
Click to expand...

I don't think they need that at all. In fact, they should drop the 24/7 live streaming part of the network, and only stream during PPVs or premieres for the Network (like the first episode of Monday Night Wars, or something special like that).

I do agree with you in principal, though. They need more content. A LOT more. Don't just upload all of the Raws and Nitros. Get a roundtable together with Renee and important people at the time and discuss every Raw. Every Nitro. Every PPV. Do this at least once a week. If random podcasters can do 2 hour podcasts on old/new wrestling shows every week, WWE can produce a 30 minute video or two for their fucking Network.

That's just one plausible idea of MANY that people have been throwing around. There's SO much they can do with this Network that they refuse to do. Logical, plausible, inexpensive programming, too.
 
M

Mechanized

Member
So... am I understanding this right. The network will only be available in Canada through Rogers Cable, and there will be no App for smart phones, tablets, video game consoles etc... because the CRTC is being the fucking bullshit CRTC?
 
J

jmdajr

Member
Anth0ny said:
probably yes. this is the wrestling fanbase we're talking about here.
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I know people made fun of the Bella twins trying to explain the network, but really... some people need this.

Only other explanation is that those buys come from sport bars.
 
S

Shadowlink

Member
Next month is the end of the Six Month Commitment. They're probably nervous about the amount of subscribers they're going to lose.
 
S

SoulPlaya

more money than God
bigkrev said:
33K is ghastly. They can't go back to their previous PPV model anymore, now that basically every provider has dumped them, and they are loosing money hand over fist.

If the next investor call (which would have the number from Summerslam included) isn't SIGNIFICANTLY higher (we are talking 150-200K increase), then I don't know what to say anymore. WWE isn't going to die, but there will be massive changes. Would not be surprised to see stockholders take dramatic steps.
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The stock is up 7% today, which is incredible considering that the market is collapsing.
 
R

RP912

Banned
kmag said:
That look is the look of a man who's just blown $50 million on a 2nd failed political campaign for his wife, after spending roughly about the same first time around.

IT. IS. GLORIOUS.
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Just think...he could have used that 50 million to help gain subscribers for the network and Abraham Washington would have managed prime time players to greatness.
 
J

jmdajr

Member
kmag said:
That look is the look of a man who's just blown $50 million on a 2nd failed political campaign for his wife, after spending roughly about the same first time around.

IT. IS. GLORIOUS.
Click to expand...

Vince probbaly felt guilty about all his infidelities and let his wife carry on her insane ideas.
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
mrboo001 said:
Some more:



Digital assets? So is Rogers going to make sure you can only get the online Network with Roger's internet? Could that even work?
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It probably means that canadians will need to go through a rogers front-end to access the online content. BAsically you'll need to verify your rogers credentials (think WatchESPN)
 
S

somedevil

Member
bigkrev said:
33K is ghastly. They can't go back to their previous PPV model anymore, now that basically every provider has dumped them, and they are loosing money hand over fist.

If the next investor call (which would have the number from Summerslam included) isn't SIGNIFICANTLY higher (we are talking 150-200K increase), then I don't know what to say anymore. WWE isn't going to die, but there will be massive changes. Would not be surprised to see stockholders take dramatic steps.
Click to expand...

The next won't be till September I bet. The number only goes to June 30 though. So we don't know how many people gained or lost on July.

I find it interesting after WrestleMania they had 667,000 people subscribe but also had 424,000 buy WrestleMania on Pay per view. Interesting.
 
Beardz

Beardz

Member
I don't care about wrestling, BUT, if they bring back the attitude era, I'm sure I would watch non stop.
 
S

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
See Vince,

This is why you don't destroy your entire business model in one swoop.

WWE network needed to either

1) Go all in with all content live.

2) Be an archive of on-demand old matches and specials.

Giving away the PPV but not the TV product was really, really dumb.
 
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