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Post by Cyno on Dec 15, 2020 17:36:12 GMT -5
The most fascinating thing about the slump Raw is in is that the wrestling audience as a whole is slowly, but surely being deconditioned to the thought that "Monday is Wrestling Night" after decades. Not just because AEW is pulling close to or even beating Raw in core demos on Wednesday (and that's in spite of NXT), but WWE's own Smackdown is well, laying the smackdown with Raw's numbers on Fridays. Yeah, SD is also on a broadcast network, but that never stopped Raw from doing much better numbers than Smackdown when the latter was on UPN or CW. Friday is also traditionally a much weaker TV night than Monday.
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fw91
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Post by fw91 on Dec 15, 2020 17:37:20 GMT -5
That was an insane Football game. RAW wasn't even bad.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 17:39:11 GMT -5
The most fascinating thing about the slump Raw is in is that the wrestling audience as a whole is slowly, but surely being deconditioned to the thought that "Monday is Wrestling Night" after decades. Not just because AEW is pulling close to or even beating Raw in core demos on Wednesday (and that's in spite of NXT), but WWE's own Smackdown is well, laying the smackdown with Raw's numbers on Fridays. Yeah, SD is also on a broadcast network, but that never stopped Raw from doing much better numbers than Smackdown when the latter was on UPN or CW. Friday is also traditionally a much weaker TV night than Monday. I agree that we shouldn’t take out Smackdown from all this and how stable that audience is because, even though it’s not as much as they first promised FOX, that’s a heck of an audience to keep on a day that TV channels don’t usually do much on. As I said in the ratings thread, they’ve at least had 2.2-2.5m since The start of the year and considering Raw’s gone down since then, that’s actually pretty impressive.
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fw91
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Post by fw91 on Dec 15, 2020 17:39:35 GMT -5
The most fascinating thing about the slump Raw is in is that the wrestling audience as a whole is slowly, but surely being deconditioned to the thought that "Monday is Wrestling Night" after decades. Not just because AEW is pulling close to or even beating Raw in core demos on Wednesday (and that's in spite of NXT), but WWE's own Smackdown is well, laying the smackdown with Raw's numbers on Fridays. Yeah, SD is also on a broadcast network, but that never stopped Raw from doing much better numbers than Smackdown when the latter was on UPN or CW. Friday is also traditionally a much weaker TV night than Monday. Well thing is too, I am willing to bet a lot kids in their tweens are probably allowed to stay up from 8-10 on a Friday. Also being a live show, older folks are now watching the show unlike the first Friday Night Smackdown run. Plus Quarantine keeping folks in.
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Post by Main Event Mark on Dec 15, 2020 17:42:48 GMT -5
I guess reading a Christmas story, Hide and Seek, and attempted homicide don't equal ratings anymore.
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Post by Cyno on Dec 15, 2020 17:43:17 GMT -5
The most fascinating thing about the slump Raw is in is that the wrestling audience as a whole is slowly, but surely being deconditioned to the thought that "Monday is Wrestling Night" after decades. Not just because AEW is pulling close to or even beating Raw in core demos on Wednesday (and that's in spite of NXT), but WWE's own Smackdown is well, laying the smackdown with Raw's numbers on Fridays. Yeah, SD is also on a broadcast network, but that never stopped Raw from doing much better numbers than Smackdown when the latter was on UPN or CW. Friday is also traditionally a much weaker TV night than Monday. Well thing is too, I am willing to bet a lot kids in their tweens are probably allowed to stay up from 8-10 on a Friday. Also being a live show, older folks are now watching the show unlike the first Friday Night Smackdown run. Plus Quarantine keeping folks in. What draconian parents are out there they don't allow their 11-12 year olds to watch TV at 8PM on a Monday? At most that hurts the third hour and the ratings across all three hours have been steadily going down for years now. Quarantine's got nothing to do with it.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 17:44:55 GMT -5
Well thing is too, I am willing to bet a lot kids in their tweens are probably allowed to stay up from 8-10 on a Friday. Also being a live show, older folks are now watching the show unlike the first Friday Night Smackdown run. Plus Quarantine keeping folks in. What draconian parents are out there they don't allow their 11-12 year olds to watch TV at 8PM on a Monday? At most that hurts the third hour and the ratings across all three hours have been steadily going down for years now. Quarantine's got nothing to do with it.
I’d sort of like to know the demos when Cena was on top. Partially because I’m very sure parents were happy to let their kids watch during that time because of how marketable Cena was.
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fw91
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Post by fw91 on Dec 15, 2020 17:48:34 GMT -5
Well thing is too, I am willing to bet a lot kids in their tweens are probably allowed to stay up from 8-10 on a Friday. Also being a live show, older folks are now watching the show unlike the first Friday Night Smackdown run. Plus Quarantine keeping folks in. What draconian parents are out there they don't allow their 11-12 year olds to watch TV at 8PM on a Monday? At most that hurts the third hour and the ratings across all three hours have been steadily going down for years now. Quarantine's got nothing to do with it.
I mentioned Quarantine in the sense of helping SDL maintain its numbers. Nothing to do with RAW. But kids usually aren't allowed to stay up until 11. That's a big reason why ratings go down the third hour. Like let's say in a perfect world, RAW goes back to two hours. I'm sure the numbers would be a bit higher if the show was 8-10 instead of the old 9-11 time slot.
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Post by Magic knows Black Lives Matter on Dec 15, 2020 18:00:19 GMT -5
This is obviously Baron Corbin’s fault.
...What? He’s still on Smackdown??
...My god, he’s spreading...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2020 18:01:57 GMT -5
This is obviously Baron Corbin’s fault. ...What? He’s still on Smackdown?? ...My god, he’s spreading... I can't get over them using Corbin as a scapegoat a couple years ago and still pushing him hard anyway.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 18:03:01 GMT -5
This is obviously Baron Corbin’s fault. ...What? He’s still on Smackdown?? ...My god, he’s spreading... We need to find a pushed star that the McMahons can come out and make a speech about to blame for the failed ratings and then keep pushing them anyway. ...Sheamus it is!
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Post by Chiral on Dec 15, 2020 18:04:37 GMT -5
Vince has had a problem the last few years since apparently realizing the ratings falling actually is a problem to do the following: -Say they're gonna do better ("You are the authority") and promise big changes -Make changes that involve bringing in old voices (Heyman, Bischoff, Prichard) who don't/won't/can't come up with anything new and are stalled anyways because Vince is still the be all end all so they don't really have any ability to make change -Not accept that rebuilding takes time. Audiences need time to trust a change and won't return like flipping a light switch. But WWE's new directions get dropped quickly when Vince loses interest and really aren't things that fix the big problems (3rd hour edgy Raw, Raw Underground, the various draft shakeups and wild card rule stuff, etc. etc. etc.) Vince is unwilling to confront the big structural issues with programming or is unable to accept that there are big structural issues like audiences not wanting to watch a 3 hour house show every week
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Dec 15, 2020 18:24:27 GMT -5
This is obviously Baron Corbin’s fault. ...What? He’s still on Smackdown?? ...My god, he’s spreading... I can't get over them using Corbin as a scapegoat a couple years ago and still pushing him hard anyway. If where he is now is STILL a hard push, then about 20 people ahead of him must be getting straight up rockets.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 18:26:33 GMT -5
I can't get over them using Corbin as a scapegoat a couple years ago and still pushing him hard anyway. If where he is now is STILL a hard push, then about 20 people ahead of him must be getting straight up rockets. Now, probably not. At the time, though? He still somehow became a massive part of the show despite being responsible for all of Raw’s woes and getting one cathartic beat down in between.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2020 18:29:11 GMT -5
I can't get over them using Corbin as a scapegoat a couple years ago and still pushing him hard anyway. If where he is now is STILL a hard push, then about 20 people ahead of him must be getting straight up rockets. Yeah, Corbin's only won four singles matches in the past year and two of them were against Drew Gulak which basically doesn't count.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2020 18:29:53 GMT -5
If where he is now is STILL a hard push, then about 20 people ahead of him must be getting straight up rockets. Now, probably not. At the time, though? He still somehow became a massive part of the show despite being responsible for all of Raw’s woes. Yeah, I was talking about him on Raw. They still gave him the rub of retiring Kurt Angle at WM and put him in a few Universal Title matches even after that. Nowadays he's right where he's supposed to be in the midcard IMO.
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Post by thehottag on Dec 15, 2020 18:30:56 GMT -5
I'm not going to compare Raw to AEW, or mention the shows they were up against. I'm not even going to mention the pandemic as a factor. All you have to look at to start worrying about WWE is their own ratings year on year.
The ratings have been spiralling downwards for year after year after year. Now, this is a serious problem for a company whose main source of income is TV revenue. Even before the pandemic, paying audiences were falling badly, resulting in cut backs of house shows. WWE is more reliant on the TV deals than the ticket sakes, which in one way is good (especially right now, with no paying crowds). But it also makes them more vulnerable to the whims of those TV executives.
If the ratings keep falling then advertisers will be harder to find. USA may decide 'to go in a different direction' & stop airing Raw. Obviously a lot would have to happen to get to this point, but those who decry it as impossible forget how 'impossible' it was that WCW would ever die. "Ted Turner owns the station & will never let Nitro dissapear!" Except one day, it did.
Of course, WWEs best defence against this is to have a successful business-model in it's own right. If arenas are selling out, if PPVs are doing gangbusters, then even if USA paid less or threatened to cut them, it wouldn't mean as much. Someone would air them, & until then, they'd be making bank. But right now, their 'record profits' are propped up by shady deals with Saudis, cutting workers, & TV contracts. It's not sustainable, & the lower the ratings, the easier it would be for someone to make the call to sever ties.
Like I said, I don't imagine this is going to happen, but the fact we have reached this point shows how far they have fallen. I would loooooove to know what the rating was when Triple H made his "marks will always complain, & always watch" promo. The lows just keep getting lower.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2020 18:36:39 GMT -5
Honestly I don't think WWE has the capability to stop the bleeding. It's just not within their power to do it. They're not patient enough to wait to build up audience trust, they're not clever enough to come up with some big hook to get people back in after the millions of previous ones that have led to diminishing returns because every big WWE ratings grab show is a trash heap, and they don't have the creativity consistency to put on a string of good shows for long enough to make people optimistic about things going forward.
Hell, even their actually good show, NXT, consistently drops further and further in viewers as the show goes along. They just do not have the ability to keep an audience hooked or to grow it.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 18:40:45 GMT -5
If the ratings keep falling then advertisers will be harder to find. USA may decide 'to go in a different direction' & stop airing Raw. Obviously a lot would have to happen to get to this point, but those who decry it as impossible forget how 'impossible' it was that WCW would ever die. "Ted Turner owns the station & will never let Nitro dissapear!" Except one day, it did. Honestly, and I said this before, the thing that keeps them on USA is the fact USA have nothing else to put their hat on in terms of marketing their channel and regardless, they’re still a top show on Mondays. Now if this was the age of Burn Notice, Psych and Royal Pains and they were doing 1.5m? We’d be having a completely different discussion.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2020 18:43:59 GMT -5
If the ratings keep falling then advertisers will be harder to find. USA may decide 'to go in a different direction' & stop airing Raw. Obviously a lot would have to happen to get to this point, but those who decry it as impossible forget how 'impossible' it was that WCW would ever die. "Ted Turner owns the station & will never let Nitro dissapear!" Except one day, it did. Honestly, and I said this before, the thing that keeps them on USA is the fact USA have nothing else to put their hat on in terms of marketing their channel and regardless, they’re still a top show on Mondays. Now if this was the age of Burn Notice, Psych and Royal Pains and they were doing 1.5m? We’d be having a completely different discussion. Yeah, they're the beneficiaries of how USA absolutely cannot buy a hit these days. Honestly I still wonder what on earth led them to decide, "So our bread and butter is quirky quasi-serious easy watching like Monk. ... Let's make a bunch of dreary, expensive sci-fi and crime epics and insistently call them 'event series' over and over and over like that means anything."
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