y4j1981
Dennis Stamp
Rowsdower
Posts: 4,627
|
Post by y4j1981 on Sept 5, 2013 5:24:39 GMT -5
I think most people know his name and make him part of the blame as to why WCW isn't around anymore. But I got bored and starting searching random things on Wiki and came upon his page where I believe someone might be having a little fun with his page:
|
|
|
Post by Andrew is Good on Sept 5, 2013 7:25:58 GMT -5
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
|
|
|
Post by kingoftheindies on Sept 5, 2013 7:30:47 GMT -5
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this. He was right to look to sell it, but taking it off the network was kind of a bad decision. While WCW was losing the company a lot of money, they still got decent ratings compared to the other shows on TNT/TBS. At the same time though, after the AOL merger the company lost a lot more money than WCW could ever dream of losing
|
|
|
Post by Djm Doesn't Find You Funny on Sept 5, 2013 7:56:40 GMT -5
It was also Jamie Kellner that cancelled some of the Silver Age WB Original animated shows, and moved Toonami to Kids WB.
Your childhood was probably ruined by this man.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2013 8:15:23 GMT -5
Jamie Kellner is a giant idiot who should have been fired from his job years ago. That isn't fan bias btw.
To cancel a show that was doing better ratings than everything else on their network is crazy. I've been looking for what replaced Nitro on TNT but cant find any information or how it did in ratings. But from what I have seen from other popular shows shows, they tend to do 1-2's. Nitro did 5's at one point and high 3's most of the time. Raw doesn't do hight 3's now days. So he lost ratings.
As for the money. Yes Nitro was in a hole. But that could have been fixed by introducing a budget. If they don't have access to millions of dollars, then Eric cant spend millions of dollars can he!? Yes WCW would become little better than an indy, but hey, at least it wouldn't loose money. The second factor was that Bishoff was trying to buy WCW and was offering $50 million. By cancelling the TV shows when he did, Kellner cost AOL/TimeWarner $50 million dollars. WCW had already lost the $60 million, so Kellner instead of coping the $10 million loss, ended up costing AOL/TW $110 million.
They do eventually sell WCW to WWF for 3 million, so Kellner looses 47 million in a bad business decision, all because he doesn't respect pro wrestling. If he had waited and cancelled WCW 1 year later, he would have been fine. It would have been Bishoff's and thus his problem.
But the biggest thing for me is his arrogance, to not like something is fine, but to discriminate and exclude it is stupidity. I don't like the show Glee...would I be right in cancelling it?? I also hate first person shooters. So I cancel MOH and Halo. How an I doing business wise?? Exactly.
|
|
|
Post by Porky's Butthole on Sept 5, 2013 8:49:46 GMT -5
Jamie Kellner is a giant idiot who should have been fired from his job years ago. That isn't fan bias btw. To cancel a show that was doing better ratings than everything else on their network is crazy. I've been looking for what replaced Nitro on TNT but cant find any information or how it did in ratings. But from what I have seen from other popular shows shows, they tend to do 1-2's. Nitro did 5's at one point and high 3's most of the time. Raw doesn't do hight 3's now days. So he lost ratings. As for the money. Yes Nitro was in a hole. But that could have been fixed by introducing a budget. If they don't have access to millions of dollars, then Eric cant spend millions of dollars can he!? Yes WCW would become little better than an indy, but hey, at least it wouldn't loose money. The second factor was that Bishoff was trying to buy WCW and was offering $50 million. By cancelling the TV shows when he did, Kellner cost AOL/TimeWarner $50 million dollars. WCW had already lost the $60 million, so Kellner instead of coping the $10 million loss, ended up costing AOL/TW $110 million. They do eventually sell WCW to WWF for 3 million, so Kellner looses 47 million in a bad business decision, all because he doesn't respect pro wrestling. If he had waited and cancelled WCW 1 year later, he would have been fine. It would have been Bishoff's and thus his problem. But the biggest thing for me is his arrogance, to not like something is fine, but to discriminate and exclude it is stupidity. I don't like the show Glee...would I be right in cancelling it?? I also hate first person shooters. So I cancel MOH and Halo. How an I doing business wise?? Exactly. The ratings don't matter if the show is losing you money. Are you willing to go broke because your show is popular? And Glee and FPS? Yeah, I hate them too, but if they make me money...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2013 10:33:32 GMT -5
It was also Jamie Kellner that cancelled some of the Silver Age WB Original animated shows, and moved Toonami to Kids WB. Your childhood was probably ruined by this man. He probably had good reason, though. Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche mentioned at Dragon*Con last weekend that Spielberg spent a LOT of money on those WB animated shows of his. Just the orchestral music alone in TINY TOONS and ANIMANIACS sent the budget through the roof. (Fun sidenote: he even managed to get the recording studio that Mel Blanc and others used on the original Looney Tunes run for his casts to use.) Not redeeming Kellner necessarily, but I'm sure any exec who saw those budgets would be inclined to axe them.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2013 11:03:18 GMT -5
The thing is though advertisers traditionally aren't that interested in wrestling as they don't want their products to be associated with "lowbrow" programming and they have the misconception that all wrestling fans are poor and won't be able to afford their products anyway. (WWE have been working on changing this perception recently) so even though wrestling gets higher ratings than alot of other content the advertisers are paying the station less than a lower rated show might bring in.
And if a network is after a certain demographic it's silly to have a show that whilst doing high numbers isn't doing a high number in the demographics you're actually trying to build your network around.
the reason USA carry WWE programming is because it pushes the average rating of the whole network up.
Looking at this Kellners guys past record he seems to know what he's doing, he was in charge of the WB during its peak, was working at FOX as it managed to grow from nothing in to a huge network.
And he cancelled the new batman adventures and Superman the animated series which suck balls, can't forgive him for scrapping Animaniacs though.
|
|
|
Post by Andrew is Good on Sept 5, 2013 19:35:39 GMT -5
I have heard a lot of negative things about Jamie Kellner and that he might not be a favourite in television. But in regards with wrestling being low brow, at the time, WCW was the lowest of low brow, and as a wrestling fan and advertiser, I would have looked down on WCW. I think that's one issue I have is that blame really needs to be thrown in the laps of the Vince Russos, Kevin Nash's and Eric Bischoff's of the world for truely putting WCW out of business. Kevin Nash has done interviews blaming issues with AOL Time Warner during that time, once again, ignoring the amount of money they lost. I think it's also another critique of TNA taking them on, when they really bankrupted a company and got it kicked off a network. If WCW was financially stable, they would have kept it. And if they didn't want it, any other network would have grabbed it.
|
|
andrew8798
FANatic
on 24/7 this month
Posts: 106,072
|
Post by andrew8798 on Sept 5, 2013 19:38:39 GMT -5
They wanted WCW off the network as far back as 93. Ted was the only reason it lasted as long as it did
|
|
metylerca
King Koopa
Loves Him Some Backstreet Boys.
Don't be alarmed.
Posts: 12,477
|
Post by metylerca on Sept 5, 2013 21:50:32 GMT -5
He made a decision any television exec would have made if they were in the same position.
|
|
|
Post by Hit Girl on Sept 6, 2013 1:16:42 GMT -5
He was in cahoots with Vinnie Mac
He's probably secretly on the WWE board.
|
|
mizerable
Fry's dog Seymour
You're the lowest on the totem pole here, Alva. The lowest.
Posts: 23,475
|
Post by mizerable on Sept 6, 2013 1:35:19 GMT -5
The ratings don't matter if the show is losing you money. Are you willing to go broke because your show is popular? No, but I look at the problem as opposed to just discarding it. WCW's problem was that it was overspending when they didn't need to. They were only losing money they couldn't possibly make back, the same way many other expenditures lose money despite doing good business. That's an issue of bad management, not bad programming. IF you had someone who managed the money better, WCW certainly could have still been a viable resource to any network. WCW certainly sucked during those last couple years for the most part, but I did feel like they were making better booking decisions in their dying days. Too little too late, I guess.
|
|
|
Post by jimmyjames on Sept 6, 2013 1:55:20 GMT -5
Took credit is right, because there's no way in hell Kellner came up with all those shows, let alone the others mentioned. Ron Leavitt and Michael Moye came up with Married with Children, Aaron Spelling did BH90201 and Melrose Place and Keenan Ivory Wayans did In Living Color. At best he bought the pilots and sold Barry Diller and others on them.
In terms of WCw on TBS and TNT, in reality they were never meant to break the bank. It would have been nice if WCW made a profit or even lost less than they did, but they were a loss leader. They were meant to bring in viewers for other shows, and in the case of Nitro and TNT, to help change what type of channel TNT was, from a station that was essentially old movies, into a general interest station like USA and what they are now. WCW Saturday Night was probably, along with Braves games, the highest rated programming on TBS, which at the time was still WTBS, a local UHF station showing reruns.
|
|
|
Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Sept 6, 2013 6:22:28 GMT -5
I can't blame Kellner for cancelling WCW, thanks to Bischoff's lavish spending, giving out guaranteed contracts and multi million dollar deals to acts like KISS and Master P, there was no way it was going to turn a profit in the next few years. I do think, had they given Fusient WCW a year to get their act together and find a new home, WCW would be around today as Easy E couldn't spend like he did were the money coming from his own pocket.
I do blame Kellner for the cancellation of the Spielberg animations, however... And Pinky, Elmyra and the brain, yes that was done to appease him.
|
|
|
Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Sept 10, 2013 0:20:32 GMT -5
It was also Jamie Kellner that cancelled some of the Silver Age WB Original animated shows, and moved Toonami to Kids WB. Your childhood was probably ruined by this man. He probably had good reason, though. Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche mentioned at Dragon*Con last weekend that Spielberg spent a LOT of money on those WB animated shows of his. Just the orchestral music alone in TINY TOONS and ANIMANIACS sent the budget through the roof. (Fun sidenote: he even managed to get the recording studio that Mel Blanc and others used on the original Looney Tunes run for his casts to use.) Not redeeming Kellner necessarily, but I'm sure any exec who saw those budgets would be inclined to axe them. Understandable, but man, those big budgets resulted in some classic material. I'd even include (the underrated) Road Rovers in that equation.
|
|
Malcolm
Grimlock
Wanted something done about the color of his ring.
Eternal No-Hoper
Posts: 13,478
|
Post by Malcolm on Sept 10, 2013 0:46:11 GMT -5
As far as I'm concerned, Kellner can go to Hell for what he did to Kids WB. He can go to Hell and he can die along with that lady from the CW. And he cancelled the new batman adventures and Superman the animated series which suck balls, can't forgive him for scrapping Animaniacs though.
|
|
|
Post by celticjobber on Sept 10, 2013 1:35:58 GMT -5
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this. Eric Bischoff and his financial backers were going to buy out WCW. So all TNT would've had to do is air the show, it wouldn't lose them any more money and they could just enjoy the better than average ratings it delivered. But once Kellner cancelled all WCW programming, the company was basically worthless aside from their tape library. Aside from Spike, no other networks wanted pro wrestling. With the USA Network, it was WWF or nothing (which is why ECW wasn't able to make a deal with them after RAW went to Spike).
|
|
|
Post by jimmyjames on Sept 10, 2013 3:51:10 GMT -5
True about the lack of stations. Even USA let TNN outbid it for Raw. A lot of it is snobbery. They like the profits wrestling bring, but they want to distance themselves from it. Remember when USA use to preempt Raw for the Westminster Dog Show, and that was during the height of the Attitude Era.
|
|
|
Post by DoubleDare on Sept 10, 2013 5:56:39 GMT -5
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
|
|