PPV's at 4PM Eastern

[Deleted]

I've been watching some old WWF and noticed they hype PPV's as starting at 4 eastern.

That would mean on the West Coast they started at 1PM right? Seeing a PPV at around lunch time would be strange, going to a RAW taping at 4 oclock in the Afternoon was strange enough.


Why did they change them? Nowadays where they sell most shows as PPV in the UK it would make much more sense to hold them at 4 eastern for a 9 oclock start in the UK and a 10 start in the rest of Europe, it could potentially increase international buys, and they'd be able to hold a UK PPV.

[Bang Bang Bart]

They also didn't always have PPV events on a Sunday night, like with Survivor Series, where they use to have it on Thanksgiving night or the night before.

[Deleted]

Probably so they don't have to compete with a bunch of football or baseball games that would be going on at the same time.

[mizerable]

I remember Wrestlemania 21 starting ridiculously early...like at around 5 or 6. And Mania was in Cali that year, so it was even earlier for them.

[Deleted]

Jan 2, 2014 20:34:05 GMT -5 Bang Bang Bart said:

They also didn't always have PPV events on a Sunday night, like with Survivor Series, where they use to have it on Thanksgiving night or the night before.

Watching the 1994 Royal Rumble on a Saturday night is still probably my favorite wrestling memory ever.

[Heartbreaker]

It's late morning/early noon when PPVs are live here...

[Todd Pettengill]

Jan 2, 2014 21:26:51 GMT -5 @noggy said:

Probably so they don't have to compete with a bunch of football or baseball games that would be going on at the same time.

Other sports & programming is a big reason. In the early days of WWE PPV there weren't a billion channels on TV. So there was less competition at those hours. Plus, they had the Replay at 7PM.

[Deleted]

Jan 2, 2014 22:09:41 GMT -5 mizerable said:

I remember Wrestlemania 21 starting ridiculously early...like at around 5 or 6. And Mania was in Cali that year, so it was even earlier for them.

I thought it was Wrestlemania 20 that started early. It was weird enough that Wrestlemania 20 was on early mid March as well.

[Boo!]

Wasn't the last PPV numbers something like a 94/84 split between domestic and international buys?

Of course it would be VERY feasible to return to earlier PPV start times but so many people have this 'if it hasn't happened in the last 15 years it's impossible' attitude.

[Boo!]

Jan 2, 2014 21:26:51 GMT -5 @noggy said:

Probably so they don't have to compete with a bunch of football or baseball games that would be going on at the same time.

IMO it doesn't compete for the same audience. It's not to say there's no crossover but there's probably a larger cross over with CSI or whatever. Football fans, for example, would seldom every watch wrestling as the main show clashes with one of the big football nights of the week for television. There might be a few that do but there's also probably a lot who watch something else - another comedy show or drama or gameshow that's on another side at the same time.

Each week we see people say 'Raw drew 3.9m against the rubber match of Falcons vs the Patriots' and next week it's 'Raw drew 4m against the classic of the Packers vs the Cowboys' - it really doesn't matter because the audience isn't the same and never has been. We're finally now all coming round to the idea that taped vs live matters not one jolt to the ratings. Soon maybe we'll realise that legitimate sports also has negligible impact.