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2 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

801k viewers for the first Dynamite of 2024

Grouse accordingly

People knocking this online are like people who would knock a sportsball team missing over half it's starters for having a bad night.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Meltzer tried to spin it as a really strong number because the Warriors were playing on ABC.  I don't care about the rating good or bad, but I laughed because the Warriors are mediocre and aren't the huge ratings draw they once were.  Plus they got blown out in that game.  Beyond the Warriors dynasty (because he lives there) Big Dave knows next to nothing about the NBA

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Take this with a huge grain of salt of course:

An emailer to the Drive In said he went back thru all the TV Dynamite and collision tapings for 2023 and there were only two of the 77 (or close to that) shows sold more than 50% of the venue’s capacity: a show from Jan which was the finals of the Best of 7 and a show from the summer in Chicago. 
 

I presume the big caveat is that any wrestling TV show from any company are never close to max capacity due to staging issues. And that is only for TV tapings and not PPVs. 

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On 1/17/2024 at 6:02 PM, odessasteps said:

Take this with a huge grain of salt of course:

An emailer to the Drive In said he went back thru all the TV Dynamite and collision tapings for 2023 and there were only two of the 77 (or close to that) shows sold more than 50% of the venue’s capacity: a show from Jan which was the finals of the Best of 7 and a show from the summer in Chicago. 
 

I presume the big caveat is that any wrestling TV show from any company are never close to max capacity due to staging issues. And that is only for TV tapings and not PPVs. 

Meltzer said this, not me:

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Hoping this is the proper thread for this, I didn't want to derail the one in the main folder, but if not feel free to mod-move or I can repost there, whatever:

I need a sanity check - I can't tell if my thinking on this is antiquated or not: with RAW moving to Netflix, if it's not simply some weird semantic thing with USA getting SD! And putting it on Monday instead - would it not behoove the fuck out of AEW/Turner to move Collision to Mondays to try and take advantage of 30+ (more if you count Primetime) years of built in viewing habits? I mean, it's going back a while, but some of those old Monday Dark: Elevation streams did 250K on YouTube, which makes me feel like it might be worth a shot too.

What say you all? Am I clinging too tightly to the idea of linear TV?

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I would agree with that. Saturday night is a death spot, and they'd basically be unopposed on cable outside of NFL season. Raw would still likely get higher total viewership, but it would still look good for AEW and they'd almost certainly get some increase in live viewers over what they get now.

The color scheme is all Nitro anyway, so why not?

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1 hour ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Hoping this is the proper thread for this, I didn't want to derail the one in the main folder, but if not feel free to mod-move or I can repost there, whatever:

I need a sanity check - I can't tell if my thinking on this is antiquated or not: with RAW moving to Netflix, if it's not simply some weird semantic thing with USA getting SD! And putting it on Monday instead - would it not behoove the fuck out of AEW/Turner to move Collision to Mondays to try and take advantage of 30+ (more if you count Primetime) years of built in viewing habits? I mean, it's going back a while, but some of those old Monday Dark: Elevation streams did 250K on YouTube, which makes me feel like it might be worth a shot too.

What say you all? Am I clinging too tightly to the idea of linear TV?

 

1 hour ago, Go2Sleep said:

I would agree with that. Saturday night is a death spot, and they'd basically be unopposed on cable outside of NFL season. Raw would still likely get higher total viewership, but it would still look good for AEW and they'd almost certainly get some increase in live viewers over what they get now.

The color scheme is all Nitro anyway, so why not?

It's a very good idea except for, as @Go2Sleep says, the NFL piece.  TK has said he doesn't want to compete with NFL games regularly.  I say "regularly" because the NFL did have some Saturday games late in the season and in the playoffs, but that's different from Mondays, where there's a game (or two?) every week.  So who knows?

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I'd still trade 4 down months for getting off of Saturdays year-round. They still have to deal with college prime time games and a handful of WWE PLEs that eat their lunch there anyway. Let's be real, this week they might not even crack 300k against the Rumble. There's no way they do worse than that against weekly MNF, especially that at least leaves the door open for split viewership.

 

Edited by Go2Sleep
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15 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

I'd still trade 4 down months for getting off of Saturdays year-round. They still have to deal with college prime time games and a handful of WWE PLEs that eat their lunch there anyway. Let's be real, this week they might not even crack 300k against the Rumble. There's no way they do worse than that against weekly MNF, especially that at least leaves the door open for split viewership.

 

Zero argument from me but unless I'm mistaken, I think the reason TK doesn't want to compete with the League is that they own the Jags, not (necessarily/exclusively) that they'll get killed by MNF/TNF, which I did kinda forget myself when posting that originally. But that said, MNF isn't what it used to be (and TNF is garbage a solid 80% or more of the time) - SNF is the marquee game now. I think there may be wiggle room

Edited by Zakk_Sabbath
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Meltzer's words, not mine:

https://www.f4wonline.com/podcasts/wrestling-observer-radio/wrestling-observer-radio-kevin-patrick-what-aew-could-learn-from-wwe-and-vice-versa-raw-report-more

Quote

"(AEW attendance) is not good. One of the things is like, there were a lot of weak advances in the last quarter, but they had a lot of the shows where they got late buys, whether it was bringing in Okada or Mistico, or having an MJF or Kenny Omega match, or just good local promotion, or lowering ticket prices, things like that.

"You're getting now to WCW 2000. And people hate when I use that term, but they're getting there. And that's a scary place to be.

"There's a lot of things that they could do, but they haven't. I know that Kosha Irby's in, and this is actually his job, his job is going to be to get this stuff up. And it's way too early to put any blame on him, he just got there.

"Even if you're the greatest promoter in the world, people are gonna buy more or less based on the product and the excitement of the product. WCW had Zane Bressloff in 2000 and they couldn't sell tickets because nobody wanted to buy tickets to the product, and with AEW, the number of people who wanna buy tickets to the product is… they'll buy the pay-per-views, they'll watch Wednesday night TV, but they're not going in any great numbers to the shows."

 

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I feel like there was a honeymoon period where lots of people bought tickets to AEW shows because they want something other than one major national company. But that honeymoon period has come and gone. There are a few problems with why AEW is drawing low houses. And it's not a one stop answer to fixing it. But the things they need to address are:


Routing.
The routing and the decisions of how many shows a city gets in a year are all out of whack. Chicago gets like 12 TVs / PPVs a year. It's too much. You also have this run of running really close to each other. Pittsburgh / Cleveland / Buffalo / Erie is basically all one market. If the area is starved enough, you can get fans from all of those cities into a TV. But AEW ran Collision in Cleveland in September. Two months later Collision in Pittsburgh. Two WEEKS after that Collision in Erie. Most fans who went to Collision in Pittsburgh isn't going to drive into Erie for Collision. But had there not been anything in Pittsburgh all year, they may have. Rinse & repeat for multiple different markets.

Marketing & Promotion.
Waiting until the week of a show to buy up billboards is already too late. The average fan has a job. And most jobs require at least two weeks notice to take a day off. If you're not going hard on promotion & marketing to get the word out AT LEAST two month in advance you're shooting yourself in the foot. A billboard can grab the attention of lapsed fans or people that don't follow week by week but still would attend a show if they know about it. But if you only see the billboard or local media two days out, it's probably too late for you to find a way to go.

Booking.
I don't mean this in the sense of oh AEW has terrible booking. I mean this in the sense that the way AEW TV is structured you get 6 matches. Maybe 7 on Collision. Regardless, you can't be certain of who you're getting until a week out. If you're a huge Bryan Danielson fan, you have no idea if your guy is going to be on the episode in your area when the tickets go on sale. Whereas if you're a big Cody Rhodes fan, you know he's going to be on Raw (barring an angle that keeps him off). I feel like that generates a lot of apathy. And explains why PPVs (which generally get almost all of the major stars on) are selling better than TVs.


There are certainly other factors. Like not really having anyone super hot right now that moves tickets. But the above 3 are the ones hurting them the most. Along with over saturation of shows. Attendances went over a cliff once Collision was added. As much as I love AEW I just don't think they have grown a big enough fan base to sustain 112 live TV & PPV events in a year. When it was 56 they were a lot healthier. I just hope there are people on the inside providing constructive criticism like this. You have to be self aware enough to accept the boat has holes in it, or else your boat goes down.

Edited by NoFistsJustFlips
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Okada is still under NJPW contract until January 31st. And has NJPW booking as late as February 24th. So he's not going to be in the Rumble, even if he is going to WWE.

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3 hours ago, tbarrie said:

So any word on how well Dynamite did in the ratings this week, particularly the final quarter hour?

I'm curious whether Minoru Suzuki is, in fact, a ratings draw.

 

Yes (via WON)

https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-29-2024-observer-newsletter-vince-mcmahon-allegations-wwe-raw?

Quote

Q1: Samoa Joe & HOOK segment/Hangman Page vs. Penta El Zero Miedo – 1,074,000 viewers, 424,000 in 18-49
Q2: End of Page vs. Penta/Orange Cassidy promo – 907,000 viewers (down 167,000), 406,000 in 18-49 (down 18,000)
Q3: Young Bucks & Top Flight segment/Wardlow vs. Trent Baretta/Adam Copeland vs. Minoru Suzuki video – 903,000 viewers (down 4,000), 395,000 in 18-49 (down 11,000)
Q4: Toni Storm & Deonna Purrazzo segment/Johnny TV & Taya Valkyrie promo – 841,000 viewers (down 62,000), 365,000 in 18-49 (down 30,000)
Q5: Jeff Hardy vs. Swerve Strickland – 793,000 viewers (down 48,000), 346,000 in 18-49 (down 19,000)
Q6: Hangman & Swerve segment/Thunder Rosa vs. Red Velvet – 754,000 viewers (down 39,000), 320,000 in 18-49 (down 26,000)
Q7: Sting & Darby Allin promo/The Acclaimed & Daddy Ass vs. Mogul Embassy – 729,000 viewers (down 25,000), 321,000 in 18-49 (up 1,000)
Q8: End of Acclaimed vs. Mogul Embassy/Adam Copeland vs. Minoru Suzuki – 737,000 viewers (up 8,000), 337,000 in 18-49 (up 16,000)
Overrun: End of Copeland vs. Suzuki – 705,000 (down 32,000), 293,000 in 18-49 (down 44,000)

 

Edited by TheVileOne
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  • 2 months later...

This thread covers very succinctly and with strong and easy to understand charts how AEW is actually doing quite well as it pertains to its TV and why anyone who thinks otherwise is woefully misinformed.

 

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On 3/30/2024 at 8:51 AM, Godfrey said:

Don’t have twitter and no website has picked this up, any ideas how I can read it?

Spoiler

5116-C417-E13-F-4-C8-D-8-E12-7-F779-C3-E

FD862-EAF-7-B9-F-4-A79-8900-0-EAE45454-E

 

50514330-42-B5-49-C3-A5-A8-F568-A10777-F
 

54-B6-FC48-F511-4-D9-F-88-C4-A27-CACF3-B
 

F83-B042-F-CD36-4-D03-9824-CB558486-A67-
 

EDAF0980-F4-C5-4-BBA-A5-AA-9106-BE318-FA
 

 

I hope I didn’t jumble these up. Uploaded them didn’t do them in order and I confused myself lol

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