Ratings Discussion Thread - Mod Warning #271 (26th June)

Why are you using me admitting I was wrong against me? Yes, I mistakingly had Ticketmaster in my head when that wasn’t the website they used, that’s an okay thing to do. But you were also wrong there, and here. That ticket website is notoriously dodgy, they had massive issues with it for All-In, and Meltzer’s figures are completely made up. It’s not even disputed anymore, it’s accepted fact that he was talking ****e.

Here you said “You think they don’t know how many people are viewing their app?” in a totally patronising tone to that other lad like that was relevant towards ratings. That’s not how ratings work at all. ‘They’ (TV companies) do know how many people are watching on the app (they’re clueless about how many on TV and reliant on Nielsen estimates). But ‘they’ don’t supply that info to Nielsen to use for ratings. The article you linked to explained how this worked. You also said “Ratings have never been more accurate.” Also untrue, it’s the exact same system, just now they also include apps. It has the exact same margin of error and proportionality though because the system itself hasn’t changed. It’s measuring the same proportional amount of people’s habits, same as it ever did. So you’re being a dick to someone while linking to things that don’t prove the point you’re making.

I’m not trying to be an authority. I’d love if you knew what you were talking about and we could have a reasoned discussion about this. But it’s like listening to a taxi driver analyse an MMA fight by saying “He shoulda just swung a dig and knocked him ouh”: every second thing you’re saying is like “That’s not true, that’s not true, that’s KINDA the case but he doesn’t know how it works and is just guessing” etc. And I’m trying to fill you in. You’re right, I’m not an authority on this stuff. But I have taken time to learn how it works because it interests me away from wrestling. So when you say things like “They know how many people are viewing the app” and I know that to be totally irrelevant...should I just let you waffle on and feel like you’re right while you’re putting down someone else and doing the thing you’re accusing me of?!

Who said anything about me being ‘in the business’?! I specifically said I’m not an authority in my very last post like, you’re making it about that yourself now. It isn’t a battle, you’re right vs I’m wrong. Grow up and have a civil conversation: you said something that showed you didn’t understand how the system worked and yelling the words 6 YEARS another 25 times won’t change that. Just own it and stop with the tantrum.

lawlolawl wrote: »

Sure teenagers are only mad for cuckolding storylines and bad practical effects.

And librarians. Da kidz sure love dem librarians.

https://whatculture.com/wwe/variety-calls-out-vince-mcmahon-over-excuses-for-poor-wwe-ratings

Vince McMahon will have to stretch his excuses to the absolute maximum if he's to explain WWE's constant decline at the end of Q2, says a piercing analysis by Gavin Bridge of Variety.

Back in April, the chairman blamed the company's disappointing Q1 financials on "superstar absences", with the implicit suggestion being that investors could expect numbers to rebound once sidelined stars returned to action.

As Bridge meticulously details in his analysis, McMahon won't be able to lean upon this excuse for the continued poor Raw and SmackDown ratings in 2019's second quarter.

According to the study, seven of the stars listed amongst the Q1 absentees have made at least 12 appearances in Q2. Bray Wyatt - one of the only extended missing persons of Q1 - has since appeared on nine episodes of WWE TV.

The two exceptions are Sasha Banks, who has not featured since her post-WrestleMania walkout, and Dean Ambrose, whose contract expired in April.

WWE will have to go some way to explaining how Q2's issues are entirely down to the lack of Mox and The Boss.

De facto top draws Roman Reigns and Becky Lynch have each made at least 20 appearances in this period - more than usual as a function of the ludicrous 'Wild Card' rule introduced earlier this year. Nevertheless, ratings have continued to decline.

Last month, an increasingly desperate WWE dramatically hired Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff as real-life Executive Directors on Raw and SmackDown respectively. The move was tactictally timed to help stock prices rebound ahead of the Q2 earnings call.

Such a move demonstrates that, internally at least, McMahon knows he has a problem. When he meets investors in three days time, he may be left with no choice but to admit it publicly for once.

I wish wrestling had a single journalist knowledgeable enough on stock market movement to analyse the strategy behind that. Was it to create buyer urgency to inflate the numbers? Was it a cash grab while stock was high? We’ll probably get loads of “lol even the McMahons are jumping off ship” reaction instead and it’ll just get forgotten about, when there probably is an interesting and telling story there.

If my time watching Trading Places has taught me anything it's that if they knew for a fact the price of their stock was going to drop leading them to sell, that would be considered insider trading, which I believe is illegal?

Got better analysis here than I did in the 15 articles I checked out looking for something significant, which were all the PWInsider article copied and pasted. :pac:

Autecher wrote: »

An overall profit increase of $86,500,000 from the last quarter, from $182,400,400 to $268,900,000 in just 3 months mainly due to the Saudi money. I'm sure they were asked about ratings and attendance being down but overall I'd imagine the investors were happy with that.

stock is up this morning which tells you investors are somewhat happy with what there seeing. Investors call later will delve more deeper into the negatives i would imagine

RAW average ratings down 14% from last year.

Smackdown average ratings down 11% from last year.

Consumer products (Merch) down 13%.

Network subs down 6%.

Live events revenue down 7%.

North America live events attendance down 2%.

International live events attendance down 14%.

Rock Lesnar wrote: »

To be fair, he was probably brought in due to the ticket sales for MSG and on that, it seems to have worked.

Raw was up against the 1st monday night football of the season, ratings for this raw was always going to be low

Yep, this thread is going to be hopping for the next few months while people pretend Baron Corbin and not the NFL is responsible, then it’ll die down again when it picks up when MNF ends and heading into Rumble season. Every single year, same thing, without fail.

Wonder how they will do on Fox? They've been advertising it a lot during the football.

Becky was featured heavily in the ads so presumably she's being drafted back to Smackdown.

Rjd2 wrote: »

The numbers this year,,,

2,130,000
Hour 1: 2,362,000
Hour 2: 2,183,000
Hour 3: 1,845,000

Numbers last year,, MNF came back same weekend.

Hour 1: 2.818 million
Hour 2: 2.801 million
Hour 3: 2.601 million
Average: 2.740 million

The September 11, 2017 Raw drew 2,903,000 viewers which also was up against the return of MNF.


Obviously football kills everything but the drop is crazy.

The teams playing could also be a factor, The Saints and Texans this year could possibly be a bigger draw then Jets and Lions last year

It’s a huge factor, as in it matters more than anything WWE do. Texans/Saints would be like Arsenal/Chelsea playing. This week will be interesting: Cleveland vs Jets, two teams that traditionally wouldn’t be ratings beasts but Cleveland had a summer like when Man City got bought over by billionaires and attracted one of the biggest stars of the game. So that could mean there’s huge national interest, or the fact that they lost last week could work in WWE’s favour as maybe the buzz might’ve died a little and audiences revert to type. Will WWE load up in the second half of the show, in case the game is a dud and there’s viewers to be won while channel surfing, or will they try something big in the show open where they’ve a 20-minute pre-game window?

There’s a whole fascinating story within the story if people bothered to look at the reality and bigger picture and instead of going with the boring, lazy “Vince McMahon is ruining wrestling” angle.

No ratings till next Monday for AEW or NXT due to Thanksgiving.

Agent Coulson wrote: »

FS1 had Punk back this week down 11k from the week before where it had a 1 to 1 with Set.

127K this week with Punk

138k last week with Seth

120k the week before with HHH

180k Punks debut.


Comparison

Total Diva averages between 200k and 250k a week.

To be fair, Total Divas has a wider base to play with. I personally know a fair few people who’ve zero interest in wrestling who watch, have watched or are at least familiar with the show. It’s an entry point to find common ground with with a lot of non-wrestling fans.

The Bellas are pretty big now. Well, in a D-tier celebrity kinda way.