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WWE Raw Ratings: Viewership Hits Record Low
- Thread starter DMczaf
- Start date
Correct me if I'm wrong, but what leverage does WWE have at the negotiating table when their TV comes up if their ratings are steadily declining? If USA offers less money next time around, the fuck are they gonna do about it? Say no? No one else wants their fake sports carny bullshit tv show.
Their leverage is that without WWE USA and MSNBC wouldn't be the most view cable network. It pretty big.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
A two hour Raw would reduce some over exposure and just make the show easier to watch but unless WWE somehow convinces USA otherwise, that's never going to happen. There was a time the last hour was the highest rated hour of Raw, that pretty much stopped when it went three hours because they'd push everyone people wanted to see into the first or top of the second hour and by the time the hour three comes along people are bored because they've already seen their favorites two or three times and already know the outcome of the match they might be having in the third hour because it's predictable and besides they can see the highlights on Youtube.
After around 20 freaking years WWE also needs to change their damn format and drop the branding crap and just integrate the cruiser weights properly into Raw. That won't happen so as long as Vince and Dunn are in charge.
USA pretty much have WWE by the balls, USA is weak in the ratings outside WWE programming but WWE has no where to take their programming that is as far reaching as USA or resources to afford it. Without USA their only option would be to put it on the Network and that would be disastrous, especially if they put it behind a paywall since these shows are basically several hours of advertising their big events, even if they made it free on the network I doubt they'd get the advertisers to make up how much they'd lose, especially with how many people who probably just wouldn't bother.
After around 20 freaking years WWE also needs to change their damn format and drop the branding crap and just integrate the cruiser weights properly into Raw. That won't happen so as long as Vince and Dunn are in charge.
USA pretty much have WWE by the balls, USA is weak in the ratings outside WWE programming but WWE has no where to take their programming that is as far reaching as USA or resources to afford it. Without USA their only option would be to put it on the Network and that would be disastrous, especially if they put it behind a paywall since these shows are basically several hours of advertising their big events, even if they made it free on the network I doubt they'd get the advertisers to make up how much they'd lose, especially with how many people who probably just wouldn't bother.
Their leverage is that it's USAs most viewed show, but that's about the maximum of their leverage. Remember when WWE wanted NASCAR tier money last time contracts came around?
TarpitCarnivore
Member
To an extent, but nothing in the last 3 years has convinced me that WWE could back to mixing things up more. We'd still get the same 10 wrestlers every show being crammed into 10 minute promos.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
My major problem with WWE is that I've watched a ton of 80s/90s stuff recently and it just seemed like everybody had a big personality. Even midcard guys got one-on-one promo time. They all seemed like superheroes. Today, everyone just seems so one-note. 95% of the guys seem exactly the same. It is obvious there is no real creative freedom. I mean, look at the reaction and love Broken Matt Hardy gets. I honestly believe that if he was able to use that in WWE right now, he'd be the most over guy there because it's just different.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
IDK why I'm posting here so much, I guess I still care even though I finally stopped watching Raw and Smackdown as routine. This week's Smackdown was the first I watched in a couple weeks and I'm not planning to watch it next week.
"Reality era" in WWE's picking and choosing what reality to follow (as they do elsewhere, including rules which don't really exist anymore either) while everyone suffers. They can't do characters, or well good characters with entertaining or interesting personalities anymore because they don't really want anyone to actually be a bad guy that they can't trot out for PR photo ops and they don't want anyone to get bigger than their own brand. They're just people fake fighting over fake titles that mean nothing and aren't sold as being important as Vince continues to remain out of touch to pop culture. Remember when Vince used "we're a reflection of the times" or whatever as reasoning for the direction of the Attitude era?
Probably. Stuff isn't going to really shake up unless something knocks Vince out of his complacency.
"Reality era" in WWE's picking and choosing what reality to follow (as they do elsewhere, including rules which don't really exist anymore either) while everyone suffers. They can't do characters, or well good characters with entertaining or interesting personalities anymore because they don't really want anyone to actually be a bad guy that they can't trot out for PR photo ops and they don't want anyone to get bigger than their own brand. They're just people fake fighting over fake titles that mean nothing and aren't sold as being important as Vince continues to remain out of touch to pop culture. Remember when Vince used "we're a reflection of the times" or whatever as reasoning for the direction of the Attitude era?
Probably. Stuff isn't going to really shake up unless something knocks Vince out of his complacency.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
This is probably more to do with the proliferation of "smarks" as people who grew up in the AE/Ruthless and got older. They grew out of the enjoyment of characters and not want that indie spot wrestler. The problem here isn't so much the indie guys, it's that WWE brings them in and doesn't let them be what made them so good on the indie stage. You can have characters without them trotting out as THE DEADMAN.
Joe, Seth, Roman, etc are all different but in very nuanced ways. So it's more that WWE brings in the same kind of characters without bringing guys to offset it. Just look at NXT with Roode, Strong, Aries and Young. All three of those guys are more or less the same person, but yet WWE turned to them.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Oh, I agree with this. One prime example is the IWC's incessant need to cheer for heels and then the moment someone turns face, the IWC automatically hates them. It is beyond stupid.
The term "IWC" is also pretty stupid in a modern day context. Every wrestling fan is an internet fan. Everyone uses the internet and sees reactions on the internet. Even 10 year olds.
The reason this tends to happen is because WWE writes almost every face the exact same way, so the heel they were cheering for loses a lot of the qualities that made them get cheered in the first place.
The reason Austin and Rock didn't start getting hated when they turned face is because their characters weren't compromised when they switched
People have been​ cheering heels for decades all over the world, it not a IWC thing
Well technically, that's because heels, in the current WWE climate, have more freedom with how their character works whereas faces typically become bland and overproduced.
DeaconKnowledge
Member
Why are we so focused on ratings? Do the ratings count DVR watches and WWE Network watches?
Ratings are declining across the board for TV. I think it's silly to expect WWE to draw ratings like it did in the late 90's.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but WWE seems more concerned with the pool of advertisers that won't work with a wrestling company than sheer volume of advertisements.
Ratings are declining across the board for TV. I think it's silly to expect WWE to draw ratings like it did in the late 90's.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but WWE seems more concerned with the pool of advertisers that won't work with a wrestling company than sheer volume of advertisements.
excelsiorlef
Member
Yep. AJ Styles and Breezango are the only ones recently who seems to have kept his persona after turning face...
In Modern WWE almost all the heels are better. Most of my fav wrestlers in WWE are heels except AJ Styles
They should have like 3 million WWE Network subscribers if there was still as much mainstream interest in wrestling as before.
But they don't, so...
WWE's ratings are falling at a rate that's significantly faster than the across the board trend, which is indicative of a different bigger problem.
WWE makes all of it money on tv deals and very little money on ads like super low when compared to other sports.
excelsiorlef
Member
Because Wrestling is a niche that got blown up a few times because one dude came along that had broader appeal... WWE got lucky that they had two at once and then a third (with less appeal mind you) came right after.
Hogan
Austin
Rock
Cena
I mean, there should at least be a minor step down from Cena that exists now, but there isn't. They heavily forced Reigns into that position, after previously flat out refusing to build anyone else up during Cena's long tenure, and it's backfired horribly on them. To the surprise of fucking no one.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
WWE counts their YouTube traffic as part of their overall ratings picture which is completely stupid.
A publicly traded company relying on YouTube views never stops being hilarious.
The reason they do that is because WWE scripts babyfaces as unlikeable cunts. heels have more freedom in their promos which makes them instantly likeable.
look no further than the usos, or even seth rollins from heel to babyface.
But isn't USA's leverage that "we're the only network that wants your programming and will pay for it, so you're taking a $100m price cut on your deal now shut the fuck up and get those ratings up."
what does WWE say to that? if they lose huge money on their next TV deal, I feel like that's a major domino going down that leads to other massive changes.
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
When is WWE doing a tour of Bulgaria? I have an idea for the next random jobber main event push.
There are other places that take WWE if they get a deal like that , so USA probably won't do that.
I guess that's where it gets interesting. I thought wrestling content was so undervalued because of (perceived?) audience issues/ad rates that no one else would really be interested, let alone match USA's offer.
Wendel Clark
Member
usos had no promos or programs when they were faces but they still got over... except for the internet people
There many TV company that would killed to have 5 million people tune in a week guaranteed. Like what happened to WWE next deal is hard to say, they could get more money, they could less money or they could get the same. It all depends on if the cable market bust.
No, they were expecting twice of what they got and had to stay with USA because nobody else would take them for 400 million, let alone the 200 they get now for all their US programming.
This was when they were drawing twice as many viewers, too.
excelsiorlef
Member
This is basically 93-96 all over again only this time they are in a better financial situation.
They are the only mainstream wrestling company in existence now. If they had competition things would be fucking dire.
India has nearly 200 times the population of Bulgaria.
Curt Baboon
Member
They also have 200 times less Rusevs than Bulgaria so it balances out.
That's how I see it. Doesn't look good from here on the WWE side of the negotiating table.
excelsiorlef
Member
If they had competition everything would be different
They have a history overestimating their drawing power. They were expecting to have 3 to 4 million WWE Network subscribers when they launched their Network (as VOD, after years of failing to sell cable companies a regular premium network) to compensate for the loss of PPV income.
They have 1.6, and only around Mania and only because they give it away for free, to boot. Things are dire, those 1.6 million people almost entirely make up their audience now, there are barely any "casual viewers" left.
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
But it has 0 Rusevs.
WWE's ratings are falling at a rate that's significantly faster than the across the board trend, which is indicative of a different bigger problem.
The 10% YOY loss for Raw compared to other non-WWE programming gets overstated because of the subsequent gain in Smackdown post-split, post-live showing.
What we're seeing is that the overall audience watching WWE programming hasn't shrunk by the 10% that dropped off Raw, but rather, the overall audience for watching WWE content when given two live shows with divergent casts/stories on back-to-back nights has some people who will only watch one show rather than both -- and necessarily, some of those folks aren't going to choose Raw as their only show.
To be sure, the overall viewing audience has decreased. But not at such a pace higher than other programming.
And whenever they had a spark of something (Punk post-pipebomb or the Yes! Movement), they couldn't capitalize.
The current environment isn't the place a Rock or a Hogan could thrive and transcend. It's too sterile, too controlled, and the people in charge have been stuck in the pro wrestling/WWE bubble for so long, they don't have their finger on the pulse of the modern culture.
Ludicrous.
They built Hardy up and dude would've broke out, but he was a unreliable junkie. They blew it with Punk, but dude was clearly the HHH to Cena's Rock. Bryan couldn't broke out, but he broke down instead.
Like if Punk had stuck around, he'd be the top guy now. Working with all his old Indy buddies.
Host Samurai
Member
A big part of it feeling stale is the over saturation of talent. You can't keep showing the same guys every week. Watch back when RAW was only 1-2 hours long and had slow building feuds. Some RAWs would be build around the mid card where Mr Perfect, Razor Ramon or a tag team title match would be the main highlight of the show. It's pretty crazy to think that with a smaller roster in the 90's, we never got repeat feuds nor have we got programs like The Undertaker/Luger or Razor/Taker or Yoko etc.
People hate on the New Generation era, but I think it had better if not as good booking as the Attitude Era. The booking started getting worse and worse starting from the rise of the Cena/Orton era.
People hate on the New Generation era, but I think it had better if not as good booking as the Attitude Era. The booking started getting worse and worse starting from the rise of the Cena/Orton era.
TarpitCarnivore
Member
They treated Punk as their #2 guy. Then neutered him horribly. Nah.
I was far away from anything wrestling related when Jeff Hardy had his main title run, and really haven't done my homework on that period, so it's a blind spot for me. I do know that he was definitely over though and was selling merch like crazy. And then yeah, drugs and more drugs.
Bruce Springsteen
Member
Jinder fucking Mahal has got me excited about the Smackdown brand for the first time since the split
Your the only one, He's got the rest of us bored out of our mind.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
This was nowhere near the same level as it is today. Not even close.
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