anakin
Mike the Goon
Posts: 39
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Post by anakin on May 6, 2024 22:22:35 GMT -5
Been thinking about the whole Monday Night War.
Why did Mr. Bischoff choose to go head to head in 1995? As a business, wouldn’t doing that hurt yourself just as much as the competition? Say there was a shop in a street, I wouldn’t open up the same sort of shop in the same street. I would choose to open it in another street that doesn’t have a shop.
Mr. Bischoff going head to head with RAW, he was never going to get 100% of wrestling fans to watch Nitro. It would always be around 50/50. Why didn’t he choose another night that had no wrestling on? 100% of wrestling fans would watch RAW on Mondays and 100% of wrestling fans would watch Nitro on another night.
If his goal was to hurt RAW, surely he was hurting Nitro as well?
I don’t really understand business, but it just seems daft now looking back to have a second wrestling show and air it at the exact same time as the other show.
These days with the internet and being able to record one and watch the other, you could watch both. But back then, you had to choose. So for everyone who chose RAW, that was one household not watching Nitro.
If Nitro had say aired on Thursday, would it have done better?
Why the need for a war?
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Post by Giul T. on May 6, 2024 22:30:23 GMT -5
Stories been told a bunch, but Eric was in a meeting, with Ted Turner the boss, and Ted out of nowhere asked. "What do we need to compete with WWE?"
Eric says the first thing on his mind. "Primetime TV"
And Ted immediately says to his aide. "Give him two hours every Monday on TNT.
So ask Ted that, though I mean. They destroyed them for a while, and really no one choose, they channel flipped all the time. No one watched just one.
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Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,137
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Post by Mozenrath on May 6, 2024 23:33:15 GMT -5
It created buzz. It wasn't without its drawbacks, but it definitely contributed to people discussing WCW.
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67 more
King Koopa
He's just a Sexy Kurt
Posts: 11,511
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Post by 67 more on May 7, 2024 0:34:38 GMT -5
Probably wasn't by design, but the Monday Night War ended up increasing wrestling viewership massively as a whole rather than split the audience.
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Post by Vice honcho room temperature on May 7, 2024 7:52:15 GMT -5
Probably wasn't by design, but the Monday Night War ended up increasing wrestling viewership massively as a whole rather than split the audience. Also the end of the MNW showed us the same thing. There are WWF fans, wrestling fans and WCW fans and the overlap is lesser then one thinks. Some of the audience switching was more probably someone going "This episode is boring I'm already watching wrestling might as well watch RAW/Nitro for a minute to see if its better" When Nitro ended and WCW died they had no base show to watch and didn't care about RAW |
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tafkaga
Samurai Cop
the Dogfather
Posts: 2,127
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Post by tafkaga on May 7, 2024 8:41:34 GMT -5
Yeah I think most people were changing channels during the commercials or 'boring' parts of their favorite show, so it made sense to take advantage of an audience that was already there to get eyes on the product.
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tirtefaa
Unicron
If you wanna know the truth, you gotta dig up Johnny Booth.
Posts: 2,874
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Post by tirtefaa on May 7, 2024 9:13:10 GMT -5
Stories been told a bunch, but Eric was in a meeting, with Ted Turner the boss, and Ted out of nowhere asked. "What do we need to compete with WWE?". Eric should have said "Are you watching their product right now? Give it two years and it'll collapse in on itself." Kind of ironic that it was "beating Ted" that drove McMahon to change the direction of his company. I doubt he'd have the incentive to do it otherwise, even if it meant continued poor ratings. |
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Post by Milkman Norm on May 7, 2024 10:50:12 GMT -5
Probably wasn't by design, but the Monday Night War ended up increasing wrestling viewership massively as a whole rather than split the audience. Also the end of the MNW showed us the same thing. There are WWF fans, wrestling fans and WCW fans and the overlap is lesser then one thinks. Some of the audience switching was more probably someone going "This episode is boring I'm already watching wrestling might as well watch RAW/Nitro for a minute to see if its better" When Nitro ended and WCW died they had no base show to watch and didn't care about RAW Yeah. A decent size portion of the WCW fan base were the remaining Georgia/Mid Atlantic fans that stuck with the company from the Crockett's sale to Turner until the end. Once they were done they were done. |
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Post by Bang Bang Bart on May 8, 2024 20:37:16 GMT -5
Stories been told a bunch, but Eric was in a meeting, with Ted Turner the boss, and Ted out of nowhere asked. "What do we need to compete with WWE?". Eric should have said "Are you watching their product right now? Give it two years and it'll collapse in on itself." Kind of ironic that it was "beating Ted" that drove McMahon to change the direction of his company. I doubt he'd have the incentive to do it otherwise, even if it meant continued poor ratings. It's just weird that McMahon's first instinct to counter Ted's WCW Nitro trouncing them was just to do unfunny skits making fun of Ted for some reason. |
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tirtefaa
Unicron
If you wanna know the truth, you gotta dig up Johnny Booth.
Posts: 2,874
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Post by tirtefaa on May 8, 2024 22:37:31 GMT -5
It's just weird that McMahon's first instinct to counter Ted's WCW Nitro trouncing them was just to do unfunny skits making fun of Ted for some reason. Oh absolutely. Vince had to be dragged there kicking and screaming, and made dozens of mistakes along the way. I mean, he was hesitant to push Steve Austin because Steve had a southern drawl for goodness sake. Once they (mostly) ignored WCW, things got better. |
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Post by Celexa Bliss 54 on May 8, 2024 23:05:32 GMT -5
Stories been told a bunch, but Eric was in a meeting, with Ted Turner the boss, and Ted out of nowhere asked. "What do we need to compete with WWE?" Eric says the first thing on his mind. "Primetime TV" And Ted immediately says to his aide. "Give him two hours every Monday on TNT. So ask Ted that, though I mean. They destroyed them for a while, and really no one choose, they channel flipped all the time. No one watched just one. The part of that story that's always bugged me is that Nitro was a one hour show for the first nine months existed. The first two hour show was the night Scott Hall debuted. So Ted probably didn't say to give him two hours, at least not right off the bat. |
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Post by Giul T. on May 8, 2024 23:11:14 GMT -5
Stories been told a bunch, but Eric was in a meeting, with Ted Turner the boss, and Ted out of nowhere asked. "What do we need to compete with WWE?" Eric says the first thing on his mind. "Primetime TV" And Ted immediately says to his aide. "Give him two hours every Monday on TNT. So ask Ted that, though I mean. They destroyed them for a while, and really no one choose, they channel flipped all the time. No one watched just one. The part of that story that's always bugged me is that Nitro was a one hour show for the first nine months existed. The first two hour show was the night Scott Hall debuted. So Ted probably didn't say to give him two hours, at least not right off the bat. I may have misquoted, it's been a while since I saw the (Wwe-ified) doc on it, but yeah, you're right, it's only one hour at the start, |
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Post by Celexa Bliss 54 on May 8, 2024 23:16:44 GMT -5
The part of that story that's always bugged me is that Nitro was a one hour show for the first nine months existed. The first two hour show was the night Scott Hall debuted. So Ted probably didn't say to give him two hours, at least not right off the bat. I may have misquoted, it's been a while since I saw the (Wwe-ified) doc on it, but yeah, you're right, it's only one hour at the start, No, you quoted it right. It's Bischoff either remembering wrong or glossing over the facts. With him, it's a fifty-fifty lol |
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Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on May 8, 2024 23:28:29 GMT -5
Stories been told a bunch, but Eric was in a meeting, with Ted Turner the boss, and Ted out of nowhere asked. "What do we need to compete with WWE?". Eric should have said "Are you watching their product right now? Give it two years and it'll collapse in on itself." Kind of ironic that it was "beating Ted" that drove McMahon to change the direction of his company. I doubt he'd have the incentive to do it otherwise, even if it meant continued poor ratings. Of course, if Bischoff had said that, WCW would have probably done the same too, riding off the diminishing returns of Hogan and friends without much incentive to really change until the AOL/Time Warner merger results in WCW getting cancelled, but with a lot less fanfare because there's likely no late 90s wrestling boom. |
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Post by A Platypus Rave on May 17, 2024 19:31:31 GMT -5
I may have misquoted, it's been a while since I saw the (Wwe-ified) doc on it, but yeah, you're right, it's only one hour at the start, No, you quoted it right. It's Bischoff either remembering wrong or glossing over the facts. With him, it's a fifty-fifty lol Bischoff is generally considered one of the biggest pathological liars in wrestling... Hogan and Russo are probably bigger but still |
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Post by LiamMcDuggle on May 17, 2024 19:45:22 GMT -5
The part of that story that's always bugged me is that Nitro was a one hour show for the first nine months existed. The first two hour show was the night Scott Hall debuted. So Ted probably didn't say to give him two hours, at least not right off the bat. I may have misquoted, it's been a while since I saw the (Wwe-ified) doc on it, but yeah, you're right, it's only one hour at the start, Bischoff has admitted to "performing" in those videos. Basically in those WWE docs, the more time you were featured in them, the more money you got from royalties connected to it. People forget, WWE was dominating the DVD sales chart every month and those documentaries would sell the best. So if you were used in a DVD for 10 min, you would get the same cut as if you worked a match on PPV. On one hand, it's nice wrestlers actually got paid royalties, on the other hand it led to things like the Warrior DVD where you have a bunch of people who have never met Warrior trashing on him, or people inflating stories to get more money. Outside wrestling docs are always negative and ones done by WWE are also just filled with propaganda. A middle ground would be nice |
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