Monokne wrote: » The key is where cable TV is when the deal is due. If, as may well be the case, more and more non-live programming is being consumed on demand while Raw is one of a dwindling number of TV shows that can still pull in 2.5 million viewers+ each week, they will be in a much stronger position. If ratings across the board stop declining and Raw continues to tank, maybe they will be in trouble. Anyway you slice it, declining popularity is bad but when you are looking at TV income, it's a fluid situation.
Rjd2 wrote: » Plenty of people have turned off their televisions though, that is why Vince is not a happy man. Oh and yeah the product while still children friendly, it still relies a lot on us adults. 25 percent are under the age of 18. from the official wwe site. so what about the other 75 per cent?
An File wrote: » Sorry to be pedantic, but 700k out of 4.1 million is not 25%. It's closer to 17%.
Alexis Sanchez wrote: » Raw and PPVs are not comparable. Raw is stacked with mid-card matches, promos and in-ring segments that are used to build towards the big PPV matches. PPVs are stacked with big matches, usually for a championship, and the part-time wrestlers almost only wrestle on PPVs. The 3 hours are definitely a major reason why the ratings are down. 3 hours once a month on a Sunday is fine, 3 hours every Monday is too much.
Stereomaniac wrote: » I think 3 hour shows are well and truly here to stay. It seems like that's what people blame the poor product on over and over. Well they put on 3 hour pay per views every month that consistently impress me as a viewer and many others as well I'm sure.
Stereomaniac wrote: » What I think a lot of people seem to forget is that at the end of the day, we're grown men watching a television programme that's aimed at children. The product isn't always going to have things that we think are great because we aren't the target audience like we once were. The best way to protest against this is by turning off the television and cancelling the network subscriptions. Somehow I don't think many of us are going to be doing that though.
Monokne wrote: » I mean no disrespect but I just don't think you can say with a straight face that one quarter of the TV audience disappearing isn't indicative of a huge drop in interest in the product. DVR number's are marginally up, but it's from 3 - 6% to 7 - 10% last I read. 700,000 homes are not watching on Hulu that were not watching a year ago, else we'd be hearing that WWE is expecting to earn huge figures from the Hulu deal going forward. Torrents & streaming sites do such miniscule number they aren't worth discussing in the bigger picture. You could absolutely stretch the point and argue 50,000 more are watching on Hulu and another 50,000 between XWT & Youtube but you're still coming up 600,000 short. The 3.25 hours kills. I could not sit through that show. I don't know how anyone can. I watch the whole thing in maybe 80 minutes max and I'm worn out.
Monday Night Raw and Thursday Night SmackDown are supposed to be the cornerstones of WWE programming, but things aren’t exactly going as planned. Despite having one of its most talented rosters ever, one that features everyone from former independent wrestling studs to household names like John Cena, the WWE simply isn’t attracting the amount of viewers that it once did. In fact, ratings for both Raw and SmackDown are in a downward spiral and have been for so long that anyone in WWE who isn’t concerned must be kidding themselves. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t WrestlingInc), ratings for July episodes of Raw on the USA Network have plummeted since 2012. WWE RAW averaged a 2.66 rating with 3.67 million viewers in July 2015. This is down 11% in ratings and 15% in viewership from July 2014, which averaged a 2.99 rating with 4.32 million viewers. July 2013 averaged a 2.97 rating with 4.00 million viewers while July 2012 averaged a 3.35 rating with 4.91 million viewers. RAW viewers per home for July 2015 were 1.44, down from 1.49 per home in 2014 and 1.37 per home in 2013. Unfortunately for the WWE, the same is also true of SyFy’s SmackDown: WWE SmackDown averaged a 1.70 rating with 2.32 million viewers for July 2015, down 4% in ratings and 8% in viewership from July 2014, even though the show was on Friday nights and one of the episodes fell on July 4th. Excluding that holiday episode, the ratings are down 11% at a 1.91 average and the viewership is down 15% from July 2014 with a 2.72 million average. SmackDown averaged a 1.79 rating with 2.41 million viewers in 2013 and a 1.92 rating with 2.78 million viewers in 2012. SmackDown averaged 1.46 viewers per home in July of this year. Though these numbers focus exclusively on the month of July, they certainly indicate a much bigger problem. What they tell us is that, during July 2015, roughly 1.24 million fewer people, on average, tuned into Raw than in July 2012. Meanwhile, SmackDown—which just recorded its lowest rating ever for a non-holiday episode on SyFy—has lost approximately 460,000 weekly viewers during that same span. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see the pictures that these numbers paint: Professional wrestling isn’t as popular as it once was. Even those at the USA Network, the home for Raw from 1993-2000 and 2005-present, are realizing that pro wrestling’s popularity isn’t what it used to be, thanks to the nearly unwatchable reboot of Tough Enough from earlier this year. According to The Wrestling Observer, sources at the USA Network indicate that officials there believe pro wrestling’s popularity is cycling downward, which is indicated by the decline in ratings. Wrestling tends to be a cyclical business, going round and round from lows to highs, but the disturbing plunge in ratings of the WWE’s two biggest shows highlights just how much the average fan’s interest in pro wrestling—and specifically, the WWE—has waned in recent years. Perhaps more importantly, though, it puts even more pressure on the WWE Network. Now, the Network has to succeed. Absolutely has to. That’s because Raw and SmackDown don’t have the stable futures that WWE wants them to have. Anyone who follows all of the major pro wrestling companies has seen that pro wrestling as a whole is struggling to keep pace with other forms of sports and entertainment, as indicated by the failures of TNA. TNA Wrestling, the closest thing to “competition” that WWE has had since WCW, has had a disastrous stretch over the last couple of years. After losing its spot on Spike TV, TNA moved to Destination America earlier this year, and there are already all sorts of indications that Destination America will drop TNA soon, too. Could the WWE suffer a similar fate? If officials at the USA Network truly believe that pro wrestling’s popularity is “cycling downward,” then the answer is a resounding “yes.” Tough Enough couldn’t even draw a million viewers for some episodes, and it likely won’t be back—at least not on TV—as a result. After a strong start, Total Divas on E! has struggled in the ratings department in recent seasons as well, and of course, Raw and SmackDown don’t seem to have any shot of turning things around until perhaps when SmackDown moves to the USA Network in 2016. But unlike TNA, the WWE has something to fall back on. It’s the aforementioned WWE Network. The WWE Network announced that it had more than 1.1 million subscribers (averaging more than 1.2 million) at its second quarter earnings report earlier this year, an impressive number that is higher than its Tough Enough viewership and likely would be even higher if multiple Network users didn’t share one account like many are (probably) doing. As the WWE Network continues to deliver more entertaining original programming—like The Stone Cold Podcast, the NXT specials and pay-per-views— as well as historical footage, the viewers will continue to tune in and give the WWE a fallback option in the event that Raw and/or SmackDown gets the ax if and when the USA Network has had enough. However unlikely that may be, though, the pressure is mounting on the WWE to build up the WWE Network at a time when its flagship shows are falling down. This isn’t something that is going to be impossible, either. When the WWE Network features any type of programming that is must-see, fans are going to shell out $9.99 in order to tune in. It happened just earlier this year when the Network subscriber count topped 1.3 million subscribers right after its biggest pay-per-view of the year, WrestleMania 31. WrestleMania is almost always a very entertaining show, and its success in attracting WWE Network viewers proves that the more must-see a show is, the more anticipated it will be. The more anticipated a show is, the more viewers will watch. Those within the WWE have to realize that it’s now more important than ever for the WWE Network to feature shows that are highly anticipated and, as a result, highly watched—like WrestleMania was and like Raw and SmackDown haven’t been. That way, the WWE will know that even if Raw and SmackDown continue down this slippery slope, the WWE Network will be there to save the day and one day provide the WWE with a one-stop shop for all of its programming.
beakerjoe wrote: » The flow of the show is one thing that puts me off, the constant ads make it a chore to follow.
Jerichoholic wrote: » It couldn't possibly be the Authority and the over pushed Diva garbage could it?
Stereomaniac wrote: » WWE are doing fine once they continue to grow the Network I think. It's not the 1990s anymore.
Monokne wrote: » From late August - September last year they were averaging right around 4.1 million viewers. For the same period this year they are on course to average about 3.4 million viewers. If anyone in this thread really thinks that losing SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND VIEWERS in 12 months, TWENTY FIVE PERCENT of their audience is not a big deal, I really do not know what to tell you.
Monokne wrote: » The 3.25 hours kills. I could not sit through that show. I don't know how anyone can. I watch the whole thing in maybe 80 minutes max and I'm worn out.
gerrybbadd wrote: » I haven't watched a Raw or Smackdown in about 18 months!
beakerjoe wrote: » Falling ratings dont necessarily mean a decline in popularity though. It just means people arent tuning in on US. People using DVRs, Video recorders, Hulu, torrents, streaming sites arent taken into account. People just arent watching Live like they used to. But I do think the content has played apart but some analysts reckon WWE has risen in popularity despite declining ratings.
Monokne wrote: » I completely understand your thinking but this is by no means guaranteed. Consider two key factors: 1) WWE Ratings have been on a steady decline for a decade. In spite of this, each TV deal they have signed since 2005 has been a significant increase on the last one. 2) Their value to the networks depends more on the state of the network than their own ratings. This is best evidenced by Smackdown's move to USA. USA has been reluctant to allow wrestling on any night other than Monday historically. There battle plan was always to use RAW to boost their average number and maintain their spot as the no. 1 station in cable. While ads for Raw don't sell well, being no. 1 in cable is extremely valuable when pitching to advertisers. Smackdown being moved to USA is indicative of the networks struggle for ratings overall, as was the disastrous Tough Enough reboot. Perversely then, WWE is now of more value to USA than it was with higher ratings 18 months ago. The key is where cable TV is when the deal is due. If, as may well be the case, more and more non-live programming is being consumed on demand while Raw is one of a dwindling number of TV shows that can still pull in 2.5 million viewers+ each week, they will be in a much stronger position. If ratings across the board stop declining and Raw continues to tank, maybe they will be in trouble. Anyway you slice it, declining popularity is bad but when you are looking at TV income, it's a fluid situation.
Chain Smoker wrote: » If WWE find themselves in a position 3.5 years from now where they've lost a huge chunk of their TV audience, they're gonna be taking a significant cut on their TV revenue in the next deal because the audience they bring in is absolutely worthless to advertisers.
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