Perd
Patti Mayonnaise
Leslie needs to butt out for fear of receiving The Bunghole Buster
Posts: 31,874
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Post by Perd on Dec 15, 2020 18:48:55 GMT -5
While other programming may have some effect on Raw’s ratings, I will continue to maintain that, if the shows were better, the ratings would be better. I mean that in the context of what I think wrestling fandom is in 2020. I don’t think any wrestling show is bringing in 5 million viewers ever again. But I do think a good, WWE produced product could regularly bring in audience between 2 and 3 million for Raw and SD. And I understand the situation is more complicated than we probably know. WWE has a lot of masters to answer to. Networks, shareholders, and sponsers. Even if they wanted to drastically change the product, they couldn’t just up and do it. But if they continue on this path, of just doing the same old thing, the ratings will continue to drop from year to year.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Dec 15, 2020 18:51:53 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. That was actually a lot later than people think it was, because it sounds like something he’d have said during the Bryan feud, but this was in July 2014. An episode (7/21/14) that drew an average of 4.43 mil, which means that the average has fallen by nearly two thirds since 2014. Two out of three people have stopped watching the show.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 18:54:38 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. That was actually a lot later than people think it was, because it sounds like something he’d have said during the Bryan feud, but this was in July 2014. An episode (7/21/14) that drew an average of 4.43 mil. Yeah, someone on Twitter brought this promo up since on the week anniversary of that promo, Raw did, at the time, its lowest rating of all time.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
FANatic
Writer, Lover of all things Wrestling. Analytical, Critical, Lovable (hopefully). Lets all have fun!
Posts: 232,641
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Dec 15, 2020 18:54:57 GMT -5
That was an insane Football game. RAW wasn't even bad. It wasn't bad, but a lot of it feels like it's on autopilot, and when you're on autopilot and already bleeding viewers, it's an issue. RAW was coming off a real boring show last week, and didn't do a ton to get viewers to tune in while they plod through the TLC December holding period, especially when it's blatantly obvious it's a holding period until the Rumble. Yes, the game was insane, but the game didn't get INSANE until the 4th when Cleveland came back from a 2 score deficit and then all of a sudden it was a gun slinging shootout. RAW started low, and got lower. You can blame MNF for taking away from say the third hour, but the show started out weak because RAW has actively been turning viewers away the entire year The Three Hour Fomat wasn't working well with crowds, in The Pandemic Era it's even worse.
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Post by mistery on Dec 15, 2020 18:59:28 GMT -5
Yeah. And it's been reported numerous times that Vince absolutely hates the three hour format, but its a mandate from USA Network.
I have no idea why either, but TV execs are seeing something we aren't.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 19:01:10 GMT -5
Yeah. And it's been reported numerous times that Vince absolutely hates the three hour format, but its a mandate from USA Network. I have no idea why either, but TV execs are seeing something we aren't. It was less a mandate from what I remember but USA asked them, showed them the difference in terms of income and...well, Vince took the option with more $$$$. Which, I mean...yeah, they were going to take that.
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Post by Captain Patren Fenderbaum-X on Dec 15, 2020 19:03:08 GMT -5
idk if it has changed since or whatever but last I remember Raw gets something like 80mil for that 3rd of TV alone.
Yea Vince may hate it but he damn sure aint turning down an extra 80mil.
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Post by eJm on Dec 15, 2020 19:05:32 GMT -5
idk if it has changed since or whatever but last I remember Raw gets something like 80mil for that 3rd of TV alone. Yea Vince may hate it but he damn sure aint turning down an extra 80mil. Exactly. There’s a reason people say the company would be in a worst state if it wasn’t for USA because that deal is so big at this point.
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Post by King Devitt: Scrum Guzzler on Dec 15, 2020 19:34:05 GMT -5
Remember when they promised grand sweeping change like two years ago when they got then record low ratings and blamed Baron Corbin for all of it? "YOU ARE THE AUTHORITY NOW" they all said in a grand standing effort to pretend like they cared and that they would actually make any effort to do something. I bet you they wish it was two years ago at this f***ing point. Also for being blamed for the ratings cratering Baron Corbin sure has been featured prominantly since... What's funny is if you go back and watch Vince's face during that whole load of horseshit. It's similar to the same faces he made during the Stone Cold podcast where there was also loads of horseshit. It's almost like watching someone brainwash themselves in real time.
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mattyy
Unicron
holy moly its the big homie
Posts: 3,053
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Post by mattyy on Dec 15, 2020 20:57:58 GMT -5
Remember when they promised grand sweeping change like two years ago when they got then record low ratings and blamed Baron Corbin for all of it? "YOU ARE THE AUTHORITY NOW" they all said in a grand standing effort to pretend like they cared and that they would actually make any effort to do something. I bet you they wish it was two years ago at this f***ing point. Also for being blamed for the ratings cratering Baron Corbin sure has been featured prominantly since... What's funny is if you go back and watch Vince's face during that whole load of horseshit. It's similar to the same faces he made during the Stone Cold podcast where there was also loads of horseshit. It's almost like watching someone brainwash themselves in real time. I would honestly check WWE Corporate Headquarters to make sure there isn't a leak, with all the gas lighting that happens on a daily basis.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 15, 2020 21:00:27 GMT -5
I get the idea that three hours every week isn't particularly easy to sell to people, but given the enormous size of WWE's overall roster and diversity of talent I don't really see why they can't structure Raw in such a way that they don't come off like they're spamming the same people, matches, and angles every week. I look back on Nitro and, yeah, they didn't end up sustaining three hour shows either, but there was a good stretch where you could kind of see the semblance of a structure in what they were going for (e.g. certain segments seemed tailored for the cruiserweights or whatever else). In a promotion like WWE with an ungodly amount of talent available, that feels like it should be doable.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Dec 15, 2020 21:01:19 GMT -5
idk if it has changed since or whatever but last I remember Raw gets something like 80mil for that 3rd of TV alone. Yea Vince may hate it but he damn sure aint turning down an extra 80mil. Exactly. There’s a reason people say the company would be in a worst state if it wasn’t for USA because that deal is so big at this point. They're mostly idiot proof at this point thanks to the state of USA and FOX's shift to live sports programming. And most people in the industry expect TV rights to continue to rise over the next few years. WWE is likely to get even bigger deals the next time around. The ratings is an issue not because they'll lose their deals. It's because they 1. could theoretically earn even more money that they'll get if they had more viewers and 2. AEW can start challenging them for the top spot and they'll likely get an idiot proof TV deal in two years too.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2020 21:04:01 GMT -5
I get the idea that three hours every week isn't particularly easy to sell to people, but given the enormous size of WWE's overall roster and diversity of talent I don't really see why they can't structure Raw in such a way that they don't come off like they're spamming the same people, matches, and angles every week. I look back on Nitro and, yeah, they didn't end up sustaining three hour shows either, but there was a good stretch where you could kind of see the semblance of a structure in what they were going for (e.g. certain segments seemed tailored for the cruiserweights or whatever else). In a promotion like WWE with an ungodly amount of talent available, that feels like it should be doable. I think the single biggest problem facing WWE is the template they've crammed everything into for so damn long. Like, say what you will about AEW, even the bad segments feel distinct from each other, and you're getting very different things from a Cody match than you are from a Young Bucks match for instance, and MJF is funny in a different kind of way than the Dark Order is. Everything in WWE is homogenous - all of the matches are structured similarly, everything's shot the same, nearly all of the promos have the exact same cadence and word choices, all of the comedy is the same tired, laying it on way too thick shit that Santino was doing a decade ago. It's not just that it's three hours, it's three hours where every second of it feels like the same shit you've seen a billion times before.
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Post by Toilet Paper Roll on Dec 15, 2020 21:11:41 GMT -5
The show just exists. Nothing really happens and when it does it doesn't really matter.
Matches don't matter because they dont have consequences unless it's a match for a championship or to earn a championship shot. But titles don't really matter because everybody wins them, and usually multiple times.
so that leaves us with great story telling to get people tuned in, and yeah.
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Post by DrBackflipsHoffman on Dec 15, 2020 21:13:39 GMT -5
HE DOES THIS HE DOES THAT MAKES YOUR RATINGS TANK AS QUICK AS A CAT
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Post by Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story on Dec 15, 2020 21:28:05 GMT -5
I almost feel like the Thunderdome is making things worse. At least in the PC era it felt like a different atmosphere. Now it's back to the same sterile environment they had before the pandemic started.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Dec 15, 2020 21:40:32 GMT -5
Vince can 'not like' the three hour format all he wants, but writing a two-hour show and cramming as much filler and padding into it as he can to make it three hours is still a horrible choice that he has actively made every week for years.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Dec 15, 2020 21:49:41 GMT -5
I get the idea that three hours every week isn't particularly easy to sell to people, but given the enormous size of WWE's overall roster and diversity of talent I don't really see why they can't structure Raw in such a way that they don't come off like they're spamming the same people, matches, and angles every week. I look back on Nitro and, yeah, they didn't end up sustaining three hour shows either, but there was a good stretch where you could kind of see the semblance of a structure in what they were going for (e.g. certain segments seemed tailored for the cruiserweights or whatever else). In a promotion like WWE with an ungodly amount of talent available, that feels like it should be doable. Like, there’s no reason that RAW needs to have the same wrestlers in three major segments. Take AJ Styles, The Miz and John Morrison this week, for example. They had the promo at the start of the show, which led into a two segment match for Styles. Miz and Morrison then had a backstage promo leading to their own two segment match. Then Styles was in the promo at the end of the show, eventually beating down McIntyre with the help of... Miz and Morrison. Why can’t at least ONE of those be trimmed, if not two? Does Styles really need TWO promos AND a long match? Would we really be THAT offended by a five-minute match for like Peyton Royce or Gran Metalik or someone to at least TRY and get some semblance of a ball rolling for them? Royce pinned BAYLEY at Survivor Series, has she even been on RAW since?
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Post by Captain Patren Fenderbaum-X on Dec 15, 2020 21:51:04 GMT -5
Vince has his chosen few he is gonna trot out on a weekly basis and alot of the times they get multiple segments which means less or just plain ole no time for actual variety , like you can always count on Miz and Morrison being trotted out for an in ring promo, a backstage segment and very likely a match.
Samething with Nia and Shayna...backstage segment , and a match if not multiple matches like this past monday , same with Hurt Business ..multiple matches and or segments.
It is largely what keeps IMO NXT fresh because it is not always the same thing week to week..sometimes the women are a heavier focus a certain week , then another it would be heavy on the tag division with the emphasis tag matches etc.
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Push R Truth
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Post by Push R Truth on Dec 15, 2020 21:58:47 GMT -5
I'm a massive WWE mark and I'll admit it... I really don't give a shit. I even quit turning it on out of habit. Even bad Monday Night Football games have given better entertainment value.
And for me this started right around the big Drew push. It's not because of Drew, I kinda like the guy. I just... don't give a shit about anything he does. When I do watch any RAW, the highlight is normally R Truth. That's how far I've quit caring. I couldn't tell you who is champion outside of the World Titles.
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