Wrestling by numbers.

D.Q

This was posted in abother thread by Furious Red (I think) with credit to the Observer.

As noted before, the February 6th WWE RAW Supershow did a 3.25 cable rating with 4.61 million viewers.

In the segment breakdown, the opener with Triple H started strong with a 3.62 quarter rating. Big Show vs. Daniel Bryan lost 508,000 viewers. Bryan’s promo and the taped segment with John Cena with NASCAR’s Carl Edwards gained 43,000 viewers. Sheamus vs. David Otunga lost 197,000 viewers.

The segment with CM Punk and Chris Jericho gained just 94,000 viewers – another bad showing for the 10pm timeslot. Randy Orton and The Great Khali vs. Wade Barrett and Cody Rhodes lost 22,000 viewers while the eight-Divas match lost 139,000 more.

The Six Pack Challenge with Jericho vs. Punk vs. The Miz vs. R-Truth vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston gained 443,000 viewers, finishing at a 3.42 quarter rating. This is another low number for the overrun.

can someone please explain this to me?

Firstly, what significance do these numbers really hold these days without wcw and a battle for viewership to worry about?

Secondly, does it take into account sky plus/dvr? How do they monitor this?

And thirdly. does it actually mean that 508,000(the number that tuned out for Bryan/Show) people are that fickle, that they will turn off Raw because there is a match they dont like on? Surely if you're sitting down to watch Raw, you'll watch it as a complete show?

If I'm sitting down to watch the Sopranos, I'm not going to turn it off because Janice is in a scene, and then turn it back on in 5 minutes when she's gone. It just doesnt make any sense to me at all!

I know there are a few on here that seem to know a good bit about the significance of these ratings so hopefully you can enlighten me!

Lord TSC

First, ratings are hugely important because it determines how much you can sell your advertising for; higher numbers means they can charge higher ad prices for the breaks. So even though WCW may not be round any more, they still need high ratings in order to get higher revenue from ads.

As far as how they determine the ratings, they use this system....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings

My understanding is it's based on a representitive system whereby the boxes are used in a small number of homes, and multipled accordingly. So it's usually only an estimate of how many people tune in or out.

It's also worth noting that trends generally aren't based on a system whereby people tune out for five minutes; it's typically that people tune in at the start of the show, turn off and find another show, and when that ends (typically at the middle and final ten minutes of Raw), the numbers go back up for a while. That's more to do with people tuning in from flicking through the channels, and will usually explain why WWE put their big feuds at the opening, middle and end of a show.

As for "Are people that fickle they will turn off if Bryan/Show is on", yes. Casual fans are only interested in the biggest names, and if they aren't gripped by whats going on, they turn off. People want to be entertained and there's a group of fans out there who will vote with their remote if they aren't being entertained

Rjd2

That 2nd segment always loses a few hundred thousand people, so its rather unfair to just blame Show/ Bryan.

What would be more worrying, the 10am slot should always have a really good spike, but that 40 000 number is terrible. I'd imagine that actually would be concerning the WWE office more.

A Primal Nut

The Divas matches always loses lots of viewers - nearly 200,000 is huge. And yet they still put at least one on all their shows.

gnfnrhead

A Primal Nut wrote: »

The Divas matches always loses lots of viewers - nearly 200,000 is huge. And yet they still put at least one on all their shows.

I reckon they looked at TNA's ratings and seen the opposite so are thinking if they keep giving them air time, eventually the same will happen to their ratings.

Problem is, they dont give us any reason to care about the Diva's. TNA did/used to with the Knockouts hence them getting better ratings.

Crunkussion

gnfnrhead wrote: »

I reckon they looked at TNA's ratings and seen the opposite so are thinking if they keep giving them air time, eventually the same will happen to their ratings.

Problem is, they dont give us any reason to care about the Diva's. TNA did/used to with the Knockouts hence them getting better ratings.

It's an endemic problem, there was a story recently of Vince having a love/hate relationship with the Diva division. Basically he feels that a certain demographic isn't catered to if there isn't diva's match isn't on the card. He gives it the lowest booking/writing priority (Fart gimmick? Comedy gold! Add it to the show!) but can't stop himself from adding matches since he believes it attracts fans.