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SMACKDOWN LIVE TO FOX, OCTOBER 2019


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3 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

Meh.  As someone who doesn't have cable I'm ok with this.  Does people DVRing the show still count as a view?

Not in terms of Nelson ratings, I don't believe. But networks know those numbers. 

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4 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Which is another part of their business plan that works so well. I'm sure they get more than anyone else that watching five hours of weekly programming plus the periodic Sunday event is really friggin' hard. But they have all sorts of ways for anyone to keep up with the current programming. If you miss this week's event live, then you have more than enough ways to keep up and get up to speed when you can watch later on. That also helps with their social media views, too. I haven't watched Raw or Smackdown in months due to just the general hecticness of my life. But I am pretty caught up on who is doing what just watch watching via Twitter. 

They always talk up social media in their investor reports (and the live show). There was a question once from an analyst when I was working on my MBA project about what that even mattered since they don't make money off of it. And it was exactly for that reason: It keeps people invested in the brand. And they also used the research they got from social media to see they had a burgeoning audience in India with a rapidly developing middle class. 

Fine! 

Just do what I'm planning on doing and leave the machine behind and watch god damn 55 year old Atlantis and the world's most spectacular midget wrestler in a Mexican restaurant in nowhere, Maryland next month.

That's the only way that they don't win.

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15 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Not in terms of Nelson ratings, I don't believe. But networks know those numbers. 

Nelson reports three and seven day delayed viewing. After seven days, it doesn't count anymore.

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10 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Not in terms of Nelson ratings, I don't believe. But networks know those numbers. 

Actually - Nielsen does factor that in

There are multiple categories now

Live, Live + Same Day, Live +3 and Live+7

Nielsen considers Live to be the very second the show starts. So if you start a 9 pm show at 9:15 pm that counts as Live + Same Day

What is reported by news outlets, etc is the Live + Same Day

The Networks get the numbers for all 4 though

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1 minute ago, Brian Fowler said:

Nelson reports three and seven day delayed viewing. After seven days, it doesn't count anymore.

I like this new bit where Gunnar and Matthew are sitting around reporting ratings

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15 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Which is another part of their business plan that works so well. I'm sure they get more than anyone else that watching five hours of weekly programming plus the periodic Sunday event is really friggin' hard. But they have all sorts of ways for anyone to keep up with the current programming. If you miss this week's event live, then you have more than enough ways to keep up and get up to speed when you can watch later on. That also helps with their social media views, too. I haven't watched Raw or Smackdown in months due to just the general hecticness of my life. But I am pretty caught up on who is doing what just watch watching via Twitter. 

They always talk up social media in their investor reports (and the live show). There was a question once from an analyst when I was working on my MBA project about what that even mattered since they don't make money off of it. And it was exactly for that reason: It keeps people invested in the brand. And they also used the research they got from social media to see they had a burgeoning audience in India with a rapidly developing middle class. 

I haven't watched a full episode of RAW or Smackdown in yeeeeeears. Probably not since Smackdown was on My Network. Youtube is the best. And if it's a big TV match like AJ/Bryan or Bryan/Rusev I'll find it. Sitting through their cruddy announcers and their cruddy storytelling just to see great wrestlers wrestle, and probably have a shitty unfulfilling finish is not fun for me.

I'll also say that my son, who is a blossoming wrestling fan straight up said just this morning "When is WWE going to do something fun?" He's not feeling it over the last several months. Probably from Wrestlemania till now he's been getting more and more vocal about how shitty it's getting. I wonder how many other kids are getting frustrated or just don't give a shit.

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I forgot all about SmackDown being on My Network TV. That had to be the low point for the show, right? That channel is about the dirt worst because it's whatever cheap programming they can throw on there and then for those of us in the Cubs viewing area, Cubs games. I remember thinking then that WWE would get rid of SmackDown at some point.

And now it's on Fox.

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I’m looking forward to Joe Buck robotically reading Smackdown drops on-air during the World Series, complete with those really forced “There’s the cast from....[show]” with Roman Reigns and Ronda Rousey sitting in the stands, pretending to care about the game. I also assume Smackdown gets preempted for the World Series whenever a game falls on a Friday.

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Just now, Dewar said:

The last four seasons, the World Series has been scheduled for Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday/Wednesday. So one week gets bumped to FX or FS1.

Pretty sure FX is in the stuff being sold

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1 hour ago, Greggulator said:

Vince heads a ship that just inked a $1 billion TV deal that now puts it on the same map as the NFL and MLB.  He's obviously doing something right. And maybe -- just maybe -- it's the product.
 

I think it has less to do with "the WWE has a great product" and more with FOX looking at grabbing any kind of live programming that will help keep them relevant to an audience that is watching less and less TV.

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Baseball is probably a decent—if somewhat superficial—comparison for WWE’s appeal in the current media landscape: a glut of live programming to provide constant content; has a very engaged (if somewhat niche) audience that only really penetrates mainstream awareness for one event a year; there’s a perpetual argument over a perceived lack of entertainment value while, somewhat paradoxically, the money just keeps increasing.

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You know, Raw can be the flagship in WWEs eyes, but "Smackdown" is the show that lives in the publics consciousness. Any time there's a political debate or shoot sports game that gets out of control, it's "Smackdown" that's in the newspaper headlines. It's even in Webster's dictionary as "an entertainment wrestling match" or something. It's name was coined by the biggest movie star on the planet today. Our perception of Smackdown as the B-show is moot. It's going to be in millions of more homes than Raw, on a free over the air TV big 4 network. The big question is whether or not it will sink if it's still it's own brand and half the roster is on USA, but the smart move is to make it an all hands on deck every week show, I think. 

The changes or differences between the shows doesn't have to be in the roster itself. Make them visually different, different sets and graphics. Do a "soft" brand split where maybe the world champion does angles or promos on Raw, but the secondary titles main event every week and the champion only actually works on SD. So live crowds and the live TV Audience still get to SEE their guy and pop for their entrance. Maybe Raw becomes an edgier show (not full 97-02 but maybe some language or juice here and there)  and SD is the family product. Maybe fill like Full Sail or Hammerstein or those small buildings from early Raws like Poughkeepsie NY or Lowell MA with smart fans and triple the ticket price for Raw and just leave SmackDown on the road. The possibilities are endless

As for going live Friday, would it really kill the company to either drop a house show or just move the Friday one to Tuesday? I mean shit they already have the buildings booked.

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5 hours ago, sydneybrown said:

There's an updated story on the Hollywood Reporter.  5 years, $200 million per year. FOX is paying WWE 1 BILLION dollars for the rights.

 

 

This is insane to me. A network being that hard up for live sports and sports-adjacent programming that it pays Vince McMahon a billion dollars over five years for a weekly wrestling show is just fucking bananas. 

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ALso thank God they found the only network where their show won't be "the longest running prime time show on the network."  Although I guess it will be "the longest running prime-time non-animated show on the network!!!!!!!"

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5 minutes ago, piranesi said:

Guys, how are you not all stoked that Breezango is going to show up on Parker Lewis Can't Lose?

"Now that we've taught Kubiac not to rely on cutoff sleeve flannels, this Fashion File is closed!"

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3 hours ago, Keep Calm, Akira Hokuto On said:

 

Yeah, bizarrely, these gigantic tv deals make me even less interested in the product.  Vince has somehow created a product that is incredibly successful for reasons that have nothing to do with wrestling.   Attendance down and you're tarping off part of the arena so it doesn't look so obvious on TV?  Who cares?  Company enormously profitable.  Booking stale and people booing your babyface ace every night?  Vince can hold up one of the tv contracts and say "I was right all along."  Ratings a fraction of what they used to be and nosedive every time there's some competition from a real sport of whatever?  So what, TV money is flowing in by the river-ful.

It seems ridiculous to complain about the product.  It even seems pointless to take any risks or spend any assets to try to improve it.  How WWE does as a wrestling company is almost besides the point.  Apparently. Vince is completely right about everything and we are completely wrong.

I dunno.,  My interest has been flagging for awhile now.  I'm just glad NBA is on tonight and I won't debate turning on RAW.

Meltzer's head is going to explode over this.  If I was Bryan, I wouldn't stand too close to Dave.

 

 

I don't know if Vince was right but they are definitely in the right place at the right time.  They provide content that is live and still successful by any metric so whether the actual wrestling show is good or not doesn't matter.  We all thought that at some point it would come back to bite them in the ass but it hasn't and it never will.  They are the Michael Bay Transformers.  

The war between the diehard wrestling fans and Vince McMahon ended today and Vince won.  I don't see any reason why he should change the way things are done. 

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2 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Is the bar really this low on what constitutes a war? Diehards shouting endlessly into the void really isn't much of a conflict. 

I think some people thought "It worked for Bryan" so they felt protesting at live events would go somewhere and lead to the end of the Roman push and other things but those people lost out so now the option is deal with the product as is or walk away.  

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Maybe this is Pollyanna nonsense, but I don’t feel like anyone has lost. That is, to stretch the combat metaphor, WWE getting this deal is the United States taking a big leap forward in nuclear weapons tech—there was no war. At the same time, I (a sample of one, granted) watched WXW, All Japan, and New Japan this weekend, each of which is also doing very well. There are options like never before.

I guess the danger could be a scenario where WWE properly expands into a global territory eating hydra, but I don’t think the Fox money will cause that, and I could just as easily make a “rising tides” argument for the industry.

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