TV Ratings Thread

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MadMundy said:
Was wondering when the SmarkBusters would show up here. Love these guys. They were right back in 2013 about what wrestling would become, and they've been proven more right every year.

They said 9 years ago nearly, that appealing to and catering the product to the smarks and online fans would drive fans away, that pushing guys like Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, AJ Styles etc. Would drive fans away, and what do you know? All these years later viewership is at an all time low because they catered the show to smarks.

I still maintain that Batista should have stayed course and won the WWE Title at Mania, and we should have gotten Batista vs Lesnar.
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Interesting that you'd lay blame at the feet of indy guys for declining ratings. None of them were pushed as the top guy. Half a decade of incessantly pushing Roman Reigns, not an indy guy, saw ratings plummet. That period also featured multiple long Lesnar title reigns during which he only appeared a handful of times. Suggesting Styles, Owens, Bryan, etc. were more culpable for decreasing interest than the guy they pushed heavily is a bit like saying Jericho, Benoit and Angle were more responsible for WWF's success in the attitude era than Stone Cold and Rock.
 
Biggy_Boy said:
Interesting that you'd lay blame at the feet of indy guys for declining ratings. None of them were pushed as the top guy. Half a decade of incessantly pushing Roman Reigns, not an indy guy, saw ratings plummet. That period also featured multiple long Lesnar title reigns during which he only appeared a handful of times. Suggesting Styles, Owens, Bryan, etc. were more culpable for decreasing interest than the guy they pushed heavily is a bit like saying Jericho, Benoit and Angle were more responsible for WWF's success in the attitude era than Stone Cold and Rock.
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Biggy_Boy said:
Interesting that you'd lay blame at the feet of indy guys for declining ratings. None of them were pushed as the top guy. Half a decade of incessantly pushing Roman Reigns, not an indy guy, saw ratings plummet. That period also featured multiple long Lesnar title reigns during which he only appeared a handful of times. Suggesting Styles, Owens, Bryan, etc. were more culpable for decreasing interest than the guy they pushed heavily is a bit like saying Jericho, Benoit and Angle were more responsible for WWF's success in the attitude era than Stone Cold and Rock.
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I find it funny that you find pushing Roman Reigns as the top guy as the reason for ratings going down, when I don't think you can solely blame one person for ratings dropping. I don't think Reigns or Lesnar were responsible for it, but I do think a shift in the way WWE presented their product was what caused those casual fans to tune out. Casal fans aren't entertained by guys putting on 20 minute matches that have good workrate, they're entertained by larger than life characters.

Reigns was absolutely over with the casual audience at the time, but the hardcore Philly audience had to go and hijack that because Bryan didn't win, I still believe Bryan shouldn't have won that Rumble at all, Reigns was the correct choice. Even in the lead up to Mania you still see Reigns getting good reactions, again, WWE should have just stick the belt on Roman Reigns that year.

I'll go as far to say that if Reigns had just beaten Lesnar that year, ratings wouldn't have plummeted like they have, even further, if they had just stuck the belt on Batista, ratings wouldn't have plummeted. Batista is a bigger name than Bryan, and he had a better long term trajectory as the top guy in the lead up to SummerSlak than Bryan.

Reigns wasn't the problem, WWE gearing the products to appeal to the more hardcore fans was the problem.
 

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MadMundy said:
I find it funny that you find pushing Roman Reigns as the top guy as the reason for ratings going down, when I don't think you can solely blame one person for ratings dropping. I don't think Reigns or Lesnar were responsible for it, but I do think a shift in the way WWE presented their product was what caused those casual fans to tune out. Casal fans aren't entertained by guys putting on 20 minute matches that have good workrate, they're entertained by larger than life characters.

Reigns was absolutely over with the casual audience at the time, but the hardcore Philly audience had to go and hijack that because Bryan didn't win, I still believe Bryan shouldn't have won that Rumble at all, Reigns was the correct choice. Even in the lead up to Mania you still see Reigns getting good reactions, again, WWE should have just stick the belt on Roman Reigns that year.

I'll go as far to say that if Reigns had just beaten Lesnar that year, ratings wouldn't have plummeted like they have, even further, if they had just stuck the belt on Batista, ratings wouldn't have plummeted. Batista is a bigger name than Bryan, and he had a better long term trajectory as the top guy in the lead up to SummerSlak than Bryan.

Reigns wasn't the problem, WWE gearing the products to appeal to the more hardcore fans was the problem.
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This is where ratings are a flawed system (as I've said previously in this thread).

Engaging "casual fans" is an ineffective way to try and raise revenue because they are less likely to spend additional money on the product.

On the flip side the "hardcore fans" will:
  • Attend live shows (including travelling to Wrestlemania). Mania crowds are bigger in this era than during the Attitude era.
  • Buy merchandise.
  • Subscribe to Peacock (and previously the WWE network) and stay subscribed.
Being able to sell this "hardcore" fan base to advertisers is useful because the WWE know who their fanbase are. That's why Netflix is prepared to do million dollar cross-promotion campaigns twice this year (first the Zombies, then the "egg").

Then there is a secondary "fan base" in the form of the Saudi Arabian market. That's why twice a year we see the return of Goldberg, Lesnar, etc. because that's the people the Saudi's are spending money on. Each Saudi PPV makes more money than Wrestlemania.
 
SmackDown will finish up with 2.1 million viewers on Monday but honestly why does it even matter? We've gotten to the point where 2 million is considered a good rating. We've gotten to the point where RAW, a show that used to get up to 6-7 million at one point, is now being celebrated for getting up to 1.7 million viewers. We have celebrated a wrestling show getting under a million multiple times too.

How far have we fallen? Anything below 2.5 million viewers is a bad number in my opinion.
 
MadMundy said:
How far have we fallen? Anything below 2.5 million viewers is a bad number in my opinion.
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Firstly--- Why?

Secondly-- Why as fans do we care?
 
Mister M said:
Firstly--- Why?

Secondly-- Why as fans do we care?
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1. Because wrestling hasn't struggled to get 2.5 million up until the last couple of years and there's no real excuse why it shouldn't.
2. Because more people that watch wrestling the better deals they get in the future and more people that watch the lesser chance of getting cancelled. Plus it'd be nice if wrestling wasn't a niche product and more people who weren't hardcores actually watched. I mean we all want wrestling to be cool again no?
 
MadMundy said:
1. Because wrestling hasn't struggled to get 2.5 million up until the last couple of years and there's no real excuse why it shouldn't.
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I'll ask again--- Why does this matter?

MadMundy said:
2. Because more people that watch wrestling the better deals they get in the future and more people that watch the lesser chance of getting cancelled. Plus it'd be nice if wrestling wasn't a niche product and more people who weren't hardcores actually watched. I mean we all want wrestling to be cool again no?
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The WWE is more more profitable today and has better rights deals (NBC, Fox & Peacock) than they ever have. The TV networks seem to be happy with the figures, so I'm not sure why you're trashing them.
 
Chops18 said:
Tv ratings are probably the most useless stat to rate success these days seeing that it's piss easy to watch for free if you have an internet connection.

On SM-G950F using BigFooty.com mobile app
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tv stations are willing to spend money on the product, unlike the freeloaders.
 
ULTIMATE_WARRIOR said:
What happened to the demo talk?
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It’s gone because the “war” is dead and buried. AEW won a “war” with NXT but it is dead and buried competing with the numbers Raw and Smackdown get.

It looks like their audience and appeal has peaked. It’s in ring stuff is a lot better but whatever else be it presentation or appeal is less.

Unless they sign a bigger fish like Brock or Cena or Taker magically returns from retirement think they have hit the ceiling for now.
 

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Lynchy04 said:
It’s gone because the “war” is dead and buried. AEW won a “war” with NXT but it is dead and buried competing with the numbers Raw and Smackdown get.

It looks like their audience and appeal has peaked. It’s in ring stuff is a lot better but whatever else be it presentation or appeal is less.

Unless they sign a bigger fish like Brock or Cena or Taker magically returns from retirement think they have hit the ceiling for now.
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AEW has hit its ceiling. Oki doki
 
I too agree it’s hit a bit of a ceiling. Until they decide to not market themselves solely to the internet wrestling fan base then it’s going to be hard to grow an audience.

I wouldn’t know how financially viable the company is, but if it’s turning a profit, then they maybe content with the numbers they’re getting now.
 
ULTIMATE_WARRIOR said:
I too agree it’s hit a bit of a ceiling. Until they decide to not market themselves solely to the internet wrestling fan base then it’s going to be hard to grow an audience.

I wouldn’t know how financially viable the company is, but if it’s turning a profit, then they maybe content with the numbers they’re getting now.
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Tony Khan said the ban on crowds and the investment on the video game was the reason they lost money last year. They'll be fine if crowds are allowed and when the game is released.
 
RossFC said:
Tony Khan said the ban on crowds and the investment on the video game was the reason they lost money last year. They'll be fine if crowds are allowed and when the game is released.
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I think gaming also helps to attract new viewers as well. For so long it’s only been WWE that has games on major gaming platforms. With Yukes involvement in developing a game for AEW, is a big plus, as Yukes have the history with the early WWE games.
 
ULTIMATE_WARRIOR said:
I too agree it’s hit a bit of a ceiling. Until they decide to not market themselves solely to the internet wrestling fan base then it’s going to be hard to grow an audience.

I wouldn’t know how financially viable the company is, but if it’s turning a profit, then they maybe content with the numbers they’re getting now.
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So 948k is the peak and they’re never getting significantly higher ever again? Am I reading this right?
 
MirosWife said:
So 948k is the peak and they’re never getting significantly higher ever again? Am I reading this right?
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From what we've seen over the past two years I'd say that 1.4 million who watched on episode #1 is the "peak" viewership. There's been no growth beyond the audience that was curious on Night #1.

Not saying that it isn't possible for AEW to grow-- but after over 100 episodes they've never got more viewers than episode #1 despite debuting the two biggest fan favourites in the IWC of the past decade.
 
MirosWife said:
So 948k is the peak and they’re never getting significantly higher ever again? Am I reading this right?
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Well no, they’ve managed just over a million previously. But can they surpass that on a consistent basis? I don’t believe so, no. Unless… They change how and who they market their product for.

They’ll get a couple of one off sugar hits in the ratings when they debut an ex WWE talent again however.
 
MirosWife said:
AEW has hit its ceiling. Oki doki
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Under the current conditions of their TV deals considering the huge names in Danielson Punk they can’t even draw 1 mil. They have peaked.

Unless they get a bigger TV deal or sign a Brock type it would be hard to see them going well past 1 mil.

It’s a good product but a niche product, the interest has dropped.
 
Lynchy04 said:
Under the current conditions of their TV deals considering the huge names in Danielson Punk they can’t even draw 1 mil. They have peaked.

Unless they get a bigger TV deal or sign a Brock type it would be hard to see them going well past 1 mil.

It’s a good product but a niche product, the interest has dropped.
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Under their current conditions of their tv deal, which was expected to be around 500k, they are well above the expected.
The next deal will be bigger.
 

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