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Post by RadcapRadsley on Jan 3, 2018 7:15:15 GMT -5
I get what your saying,but Amazon in particular spent a billion dollars on LOTR with no actual talent attached,they spend millions every year on scripted shows watched by thousands of people. At this point even if WWE was not a profitable endeavor,they don't really care they are just trying to grow market share. WWE is a steady content provider for 52 weeks of the year. Long term wwe has Yuge problems,but as of right now they have 6 hours a week of original programming watched by millions,on paper that is gonna look great to someone. The bubble will burst but we are not there yet,Amazon and Netflix in particular are still throwing money around like Coked out 80s Wall Street Bankers at a strip club. WWE certainly got got by Usa last time,but the ball now is more favorable to content makers then it was during their last negotiations,despite WWE dwindling ratings USA just might have to pay far more then they want.
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Post by 111111 on Jan 3, 2018 7:28:52 GMT -5
One interesting thing I haven't seen brought up is that when they sorted the last lot of TV deals out they timed it so alot of the international deals would run out the same time meaning they have more to offer streaming services in negotiations as due to the minefield that is international rights these services are after content they can license in as many regions as possible.
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Post by sfvega on Jan 3, 2018 8:35:31 GMT -5
I get what your saying,but Amazon in particular spent a billion dollars on LOTR with no actual talent attached,they spend millions every year on scripted shows watched by thousands of people. At this point even if WWE was not a profitable endeavor,they don't really care they are just trying to grow market share. WWE is a steady content provider for 52 weeks of the year. Long term wwe has Yuge problems,but as of right now they have 6 hours a week of original programming watched by millions,on paper that is gonna look great to someone. The bubble will burst but we are not there yet,Amazon and Netflix in particular are still throwing money around like Coked out 80s Wall Street Bankers at a strip club. WWE certainly got got by Usa last time,but the ball now is more favorable to content makers then it was during their last negotiations,despite WWE dwindling ratings USA just might have to pay far more then they want. It doesn't fit their service. WWE's rights are all about live TV. Netflix doesn't do live TV. They're both essentially OnDemand strsaming services, outside of standalones like NFL games which are the king of all broadcast media. WWE has that part of it (ondemand service) covered, and would not want someone like Netflix having the same availability to their content as they do. It's a conflict of interest for the Network. Netflix would abolsutely make that a sticking point though. If they are overpaying for Raw and SD, they would at least want the content from the date of contract going forward. And they've gotten past seasons from content providers that they paid way, way less than 150-200 mil. So it really makes no sense for either of these providers. I don't expect Netflix to even offer them. And again, I think Hulu is more likely to make a push than Amazon. It is not a more beneficiary environment for content providers than 2014 was. Cord cutting is huge and TV rights money is one of the first cuts. You're going to see a lot of sports change networks for that exact reason. Now alternatives to cable and satelite are on the rise, but the spending on rights for them has yet to reach what traditional networks paid. So until the alternatives start overpaying for content MORE than networks used to, then yes the bubble has burst.
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Post by slaughterama on Jan 3, 2018 11:58:01 GMT -5
THIS! These companies are always looking for new content and are desperate to find ways to lure new subscribers. WWE is a unique market that one of them could see as an untapped source for new subscribers. These services were all offering essentially the same product. The next to step to compete with each other was offering a different variety of specials and original programming. WWE could be an extremely attractive name for one of them to have under their umbrella. The landscape has changed since WWE's last deal, and I'm sure they're banking on that change to spark at least a modest bidding war. The biggest issue is that consistently, for pretty much their whole existence, it's been shown that the majority of WWE's viewers don't ever actually pay for it. It raises the question of how many people would actually bother following along with them moving to some variety of streaming platform compared to how many people only watch it because it's convenient lengthy programming with a reliable schedule. It's a fair question, but just remember what happened with Sirius & XM. They were throwing insane money at every name out there for the sake of content and competition. Content and brands are the most valuable commodity right now. These streaming services are going all out to try and lure as many people as they can, while keeping them from choosing another service. They know they're not going to get WWE's entire audience, but even a nominal portion of it is invaluable to them. These companies aren't all going to survive, especially with companies like Facebook and Twitter looking to further expand their streaming presence, so they want as many subscribers as they can get, as fast as they can get it. Cost is not as big a concern as you might think. The minute one of them is out of the race, the more cake for everyone else. They're all offering original series and movies. What they need is the other outside original/exclusive content, whether it be professional sports, live events, concerts, award shows, or a WWE.
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Post by sfvega on Jan 3, 2018 12:19:17 GMT -5
The biggest issue is that consistently, for pretty much their whole existence, it's been shown that the majority of WWE's viewers don't ever actually pay for it. It raises the question of how many people would actually bother following along with them moving to some variety of streaming platform compared to how many people only watch it because it's convenient lengthy programming with a reliable schedule. It's a fair question, but just remember what happened with Sirius & XM. They were throwing insane money at every name out there for the sake of content and competition. Content and brands are the most valuable commodity right now. These streaming services are going all out to try and lure as many people as they can, while keeping them from choosing another service. They know they're not going to get WWE's entire audience, but even a nominal portion of it is invaluable to them. These companies aren't all going to survive, especially with companies like Facebook and Twitter looking to further expand their streaming presence, so they want as many subscribers as they can get, as fast as they can get it. Cost is not as big a concern as you might think. The minute one of them is out of the race, the more cake for everyone else. They're all offering original series and movies. What they need is the other outside original/exclusive content, whether it be professional sports, live events, concerts, award shows, or a WWE. Amazon was actually going to start a live streaming service of its own and scrapped that idea because they weren't sure it was going to make enough money. And if you look at Facebook's offerings, overall they are very.....thrifty and niche to start. So it may not be as big a wild west spending frenzy as some may think....
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Post by Jokaine on Jan 3, 2018 12:25:34 GMT -5
With Amazon,Yahoo,Hulu,Netflix all giving appearances they want to invest in Live Sports,all WWE or any other sport needs is 1 person to bite or drive up the price. Even if their ratings are down the rights fee bubble has gotten a shot in the vien's the last few years. Who knows maybe Universal can collude with some of these companies to lowball WWE like last time but I don't think it's a given. If you're USA though, why does that drive the price up? WWE is getting well over 100 mil a year. What they do doesn't fit Netflix at all, so they won't pay that. Yahoo? Can't afford them. Going to Amazon or Hulu would limit their reach. Hulu is the most likely to get into actual negotiations. But their reach isn't great. USA has a deal with Hulu, they're on Vue, they're on Sling, they're on cable and satelite companies. Going exclusive to Hulu would not only be a complete paradigm shift to what they've usually done, it would also directly lead to less eyes on the product than their already declining ratings. So if I'm USA, I stick to my guns. Why pay more for these worse and worse ratings? It's easy to play a major network who is under a gigantic conglomerate on paper, but it's much harder in practice. Cord cutting is a big friggin deal. The TV rights bubble to cable networks has burst in the biggest way. It is in no way on the rise. Just because the DEMAND is up on alternative options, doesn't mean that MONEY isn't going way down everywhere. The money is quickly becoming unsustainable. If it's gonna go down for ratings tanks like college and pro football, you'd best believe it is going to go down for entities like WWE. If you think they're gonna get over on a big TV company now off a bluff on their declining ratings, you may be a little crazy. Everybody's Nielsen ratings are down so placing WWE in a bubble and evaluating just theirs doesn't draw the most accurate picture of how much ad time is worth to a company. You mentioned Vie, Hulu and Sling. It's my understanding those platforms don't count toward traditional Nielsen ratings. Those platforms do still have commercials on them, though, so I'm sure that factors into how advertisers value ad time. I have no idea how the next WWE TV deal will shake out. I do, however, believe Meltzer may have actually talked to some people with a working knowledge of the TV industry whereas most of the comments in this thread seem to be more of the same, "sky is falling," stuff that pops up all the time about anything related to WWE.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jan 3, 2018 12:54:55 GMT -5
The problem is there wouldn't be a bidding war between the online outlets and the cable ones, because there'd be no competition; the cable ones would simply blow the online platforms out of the water. As stated above, WWE's style of programming is infinitely more worthwhile to live cable than to streaming services. If WWE were to move to an online provider in the next few years, the company as you currently know it would cease to exist.
In a weird way, cord cutting actually benefits WWE to a slight degree, as live broadcasts become more and more precious to cable platforms because they're something the online ones aren't offering. Still, the fact remains that it's a product that fans don't typically pay for, and the fact remains that the perceived wrestling audience isn't a great target for most advertisers; that's more why I'm not sure why they'd want to pump up expectations like this, it's not like their audience has changed in any significant way to suddenly make it more appealing to advertisers.
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Post by sfvega on Jan 3, 2018 12:58:52 GMT -5
If you're USA though, why does that drive the price up? WWE is getting well over 100 mil a year. What they do doesn't fit Netflix at all, so they won't pay that. Yahoo? Can't afford them. Going to Amazon or Hulu would limit their reach. Hulu is the most likely to get into actual negotiations. But their reach isn't great. USA has a deal with Hulu, they're on Vue, they're on Sling, they're on cable and satelite companies. Going exclusive to Hulu would not only be a complete paradigm shift to what they've usually done, it would also directly lead to less eyes on the product than their already declining ratings. So if I'm USA, I stick to my guns. Why pay more for these worse and worse ratings? It's easy to play a major network who is under a gigantic conglomerate on paper, but it's much harder in practice. Cord cutting is a big friggin deal. The TV rights bubble to cable networks has burst in the biggest way. It is in no way on the rise. Just because the DEMAND is up on alternative options, doesn't mean that MONEY isn't going way down everywhere. The money is quickly becoming unsustainable. If it's gonna go down for ratings tanks like college and pro football, you'd best believe it is going to go down for entities like WWE. If you think they're gonna get over on a big TV company now off a bluff on their declining ratings, you may be a little crazy. Everybody's Nielsen ratings are down so placing WWE in a bubble and evaluating just theirs doesn't draw the most accurate picture of how much ad time is worth to a company. You mentioned Vie, Hulu and Sling. It's my understanding those platforms don't count toward traditional Nielsen ratings. Those platforms do still have commercials on them, though, so I'm sure that factors into how advertisers value ad time. I have no idea how the next WWE TV deal will shake out. I do, however, believe Meltzer may have actually talked to some people with a working knowledge of the TV industry whereas most of the comments in this thread seem to be more of the same, "sky is falling," stuff that pops up all the time about anything related to WWE. No one is placing WWE's declining rating in a bubble. You'd have to get into standard deviation of combined higher end prime time cable channels to see just how much WWE's audience is losing versus the norm. But I'd venture to guess it's more. It's also very hard to believe that USA would take these numbers to negotiations and say "Eh, don't worry about it. Here's 200 mil a year. Let's go out for ice cream, champ." As much as people want to paint a positive picture, both cable networks and WWE are in a worse place than they were in 2014 when they projected another big deal and were disappointed. Now maybe they're in a position where they're both at a stalemate of bad bargaining positions, but it seems like a situation where they should expect a similar or worse deal than before.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 13:16:03 GMT -5
Everybody's Nielsen ratings are down so placing WWE in a bubble and evaluating just theirs doesn't draw the most accurate picture of how much ad time is worth to a company. You mentioned Vie, Hulu and Sling. It's my understanding those platforms don't count toward traditional Nielsen ratings. Those platforms do still have commercials on them, though, so I'm sure that factors into how advertisers value ad time. I have no idea how the next WWE TV deal will shake out. I do, however, believe Meltzer may have actually talked to some people with a working knowledge of the TV industry whereas most of the comments in this thread seem to be more of the same, "sky is falling," stuff that pops up all the time about anything related to WWE. No one is placing WWE's declining rating in a bubble. You'd have to get into standard deviation of combined higher end prime time cable channels to see just how much WWE's audience is losing versus the norm. But I'd venture to guess it's more. It's also very hard to believe that USA would take these numbers to negotiations and say "Eh, don't worry about it. Here's 200 mil a year. Let's go out for ice cream, champ." As much as people want to paint a positive picture, both cable networks and WWE are in a worse place than they were in 2014 when they projected another big deal and were disappointed. Now maybe they're in a position where they're both at a stalemate of bad bargaining positions, but it seems like a situation where they should expect a similar or worse deal than before. If only there was a lot of money being made from live streaming.
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Post by KofiMania on Jan 3, 2018 13:19:43 GMT -5
Everybody's Nielsen ratings are down so placing WWE in a bubble and evaluating just theirs doesn't draw the most accurate picture of how much ad time is worth to a company. You mentioned Vie, Hulu and Sling. It's my understanding those platforms don't count toward traditional Nielsen ratings. Those platforms do still have commercials on them, though, so I'm sure that factors into how advertisers value ad time. I have no idea how the next WWE TV deal will shake out. I do, however, believe Meltzer may have actually talked to some people with a working knowledge of the TV industry whereas most of the comments in this thread seem to be more of the same, "sky is falling," stuff that pops up all the time about anything related to WWE. No one is placing WWE's declining rating in a bubble. You'd have to get into standard deviation of combined higher end prime time cable channels to see just how much WWE's audience is losing versus the norm. But I'd venture to guess it's more. It's also very hard to believe that USA would take these numbers to negotiations and say "Eh, don't worry about it. Here's 200 mil a year. Let's go out for ice cream, champ." As much as people want to paint a positive picture, both cable networks and WWE are in a worse place than they were in 2014 when they projected another big deal and were disappointed. Now maybe they're in a position where they're both at a stalemate of bad bargaining positions, but it seems like a situation where they should expect a similar or worse deal than before. WWE is not losing it's Nielsen rating-audience at a higher rate than overall ratings. That's why they will be a valuable commodity. Didn't UFC just get a bump in rights' fees despite declining ratings as well? Also, WWE the last time there were negotiations DID get an increase in rights' fees, it was just less than what Vince had predicted.
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Post by sfvega on Jan 3, 2018 13:29:05 GMT -5
No one is placing WWE's declining rating in a bubble. You'd have to get into standard deviation of combined higher end prime time cable channels to see just how much WWE's audience is losing versus the norm. But I'd venture to guess it's more. It's also very hard to believe that USA would take these numbers to negotiations and say "Eh, don't worry about it. Here's 200 mil a year. Let's go out for ice cream, champ." As much as people want to paint a positive picture, both cable networks and WWE are in a worse place than they were in 2014 when they projected another big deal and were disappointed. Now maybe they're in a position where they're both at a stalemate of bad bargaining positions, but it seems like a situation where they should expect a similar or worse deal than before. WWE is not losing it's Nielsen rating-audience at a higher rate than overall ratings. That's why they will be a valuable commodity. Didn't UFC just get a bump in rights' fees despite declining ratings as well? Also, WWE the last time there were negotiations DID get an increase in rights' fees, it was just less than what Vince had predicted. There have been two threads lately about the WWE's future/past TV rights negotiations, and I've never really even implied that they didn't get an increase last time. So that's just a really weird point to make. Raw (the biggest part of any TV deal) has lost almost 1/3rd of their Nielson audience since 2014. It's hard to buy that not only is that happening across the board in cable, but it's actually worse. I don't know if I buy prime time ratings being down more than that across the board without numbers.
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Shai
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Post by Shai on Jan 3, 2018 15:17:55 GMT -5
I'm not quite understanding why they don't just move to the WWE Network full time....it the end wouldn't that benefit WWE across the board? Just started being able to watch Raw live (legally) again due to getting Hulu's Live TV service...so my other question was how do those views affect ratings?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 15:23:14 GMT -5
I'm not quite understanding why they don't just move to the WWE Network full time....it the end wouldn't that benefit WWE across the board? Just started being able to watch Raw live (legally) again due to getting Hulu's Live TV service...so my other question was how do those views affect ratings? If they try to move everything entirely to the Network they're screwed. It basically has stopped showing any real growth potential and while profitable doesn't really turn that big of one, and going entirely driven by subscribers both basically makes it impossible for them to even theoretically attract new customers and would massively increase their budget since they'd need to be constantly pumping out more and more stuff to ry and keep people watching. To say nothing of the fact their TV contracts are by far their biggest source of income.
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Shai
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Post by Shai on Jan 3, 2018 15:30:22 GMT -5
I'm not quite understanding why they don't just move to the WWE Network full time....it the end wouldn't that benefit WWE across the board? Just started being able to watch Raw live (legally) again due to getting Hulu's Live TV service...so my other question was how do those views affect ratings? If they try to move everything entirely to the Network they're screwed. It basically has stopped showing any real growth potential and while profitable doesn't really turn that big of one, and going entirely driven by subscribers both basically makes it impossible for them to even theoretically attract new customers and would massively increase their budget since they'd need to be constantly pumping out more and more stuff to ry and keep people watching. To say nothing of the fact their TV contracts are by far their biggest source of income. Okay that makes sense. TV gives them at least the opportunity to make new fans because more people see it.
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Post by slaughterama on Jan 3, 2018 16:48:59 GMT -5
I'm not quite understanding why they don't just move to the WWE Network full time....it the end wouldn't that benefit WWE across the board? Just started being able to watch Raw live (legally) again due to getting Hulu's Live TV service...so my other question was how do those views affect ratings? If they try to move everything entirely to the Network they're screwed. It basically has stopped showing any real growth potential and while profitable doesn't really turn that big of one, and going entirely driven by subscribers both basically makes it impossible for them to even theoretically attract new customers and would massively increase their budget since they'd need to be constantly pumping out more and more stuff to ry and keep people watching. To say nothing of the fact their TV contracts are by far their biggest source of income. Yeah, I think ultimately they go with where the most eyes are. RAW and SmackDown are basically 5 hours worth of infomercials for WWE each week. Getting paid 9 figures to create content that is essentially an ad for your network, merchandise, and live events would have to trump getting (possibly) more money, but less eyes.
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Post by KofiMania on Jan 3, 2018 17:02:19 GMT -5
WWE is not losing it's Nielsen rating-audience at a higher rate than overall ratings. That's why they will be a valuable commodity. Didn't UFC just get a bump in rights' fees despite declining ratings as well? Also, WWE the last time there were negotiations DID get an increase in rights' fees, it was just less than what Vince had predicted. There have been two threads lately about the WWE's future/past TV rights negotiations, and I've never really even implied that they didn't get an increase last time. So that's just a really weird point to make. Raw (the biggest part of any TV deal) has lost almost 1/3rd of their Nielson audience since 2014. It's hard to buy that not only is that happening across the board in cable, but it's actually worse. I don't know if I buy prime time ratings being down more than that across the board without numbers. This article, www.marketingcharts.com/featured-24817, and others like it, essentially say that between 2012 and 2017, viewership of traditional TV has dropped 45% for young teens; 32% for those 18-34 and 16% for 35-49. This article, www.businessinsider.com/traditional-tvs-demographic-woes-get-worse-2017-1, has a chart showing the declining viewership since 2012. It was relatively steady around late 2012 into early 2014 (when WWE's last deal was struck) but then has saw a dramatic drop.
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Post by sfvega on Jan 3, 2018 18:47:12 GMT -5
There have been two threads lately about the WWE's future/past TV rights negotiations, and I've never really even implied that they didn't get an increase last time. So that's just a really weird point to make. Raw (the biggest part of any TV deal) has lost almost 1/3rd of their Nielson audience since 2014. It's hard to buy that not only is that happening across the board in cable, but it's actually worse. I don't know if I buy prime time ratings being down more than that across the board without numbers. This article, www.marketingcharts.com/featured-24817, and others like it, essentially say that between 2012 and 2017, viewership of traditional TV has dropped 45% for young teens; 32% for those 18-34 and 16% for 35-49. This article, www.businessinsider.com/traditional-tvs-demographic-woes-get-worse-2017-1, has a chart showing the declining viewership since 2012. It was relatively steady around late 2012 into early 2014 (when WWE's last deal was struck) but then has saw a dramatic drop. That's not exactly the info I was looking for, but if you look at the chart, the US pop line doesn't drop as dramatically going from roughly minus 10% to minus 16%
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Sam Punk
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Post by Sam Punk on Jan 4, 2018 3:24:29 GMT -5
I was wondering why the stock was going up. Although it is down in the past day.
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