WWE Network.....

Any guys know anything with regards to this?

I'm guessing it's gonna be exclusive to the North American market. The NFL has its own network & Sky seem to pick up some programming from this, I think the major tv companies still show the games with one or two season ending games being exclusive to the network.

I've heard all sorts of story's that WWE are possible gonna abandon pay per view & broadcast at least some of them on the network. The thinking behind this seems to be cable providers would be willing to pay more for the channel if this sort of programming was available.

Anyone with any thoughts, ideas or more knowledge on the concept. Would they consider Monday Night Raw being a network exclusive? I'm thinking this isn't economically viable due to the advertising revenue it brings

I might be only one who thinks this, but I can see this network going badly wrong for WWE. I heard Vince borrowed alot of money for this or he put enough money into the project that it has to do well quickly or WWE are in trouble. Someone with better financial knowledge would be better explaining this.

Apparently only the big four will be PPV and the rest will go on the network, while the rest, the regular shows and reruns of ECW WCW and other organizations will be shown, along with interactive rubbish for the WWE universe.

As for the UK showings it'll still be the same most likely Sky have a long contract with the WWE. But maybe the network will be available here.

Be interesting to see how it works. The advertisement didn't shed much light as it was quite Poopie!

So it's basically a WWE channel?

I don't think it'll get to the stage where WWE are in trouble but I do see it tanking

RAW will stay on USA as that's a major main stream station and a major coup for both parties

I can see this being a bomb of XFL proportions.

I've heard they're gambling quite a bit on this one, not too sure they can afford to spunk a load of this

I don't think it's the crash and burn prospect some people seem to. I think if they are available to a lot of viewers that they'll be able to create a steady enough viewership for their network.

They have so much footage in the vault to show, so they aren't going to be short on content, and you never know, it might get casual former fans coming in and sticking around.

I certainly don't think they would be gambling their multi-million dollar company on this single idea, so even if it bombs, they're not likely to be replacing John Cena with Doink the Clown to save wage costs.

Unlike the NFL Network, which has 16 games a week and real-life injury news to fill it's hours, I struggle to see how 20+ hours a day of "vintage" content is going to draw the punters in. I mean, the WWE scriptwriters struggle to fill 6 hours of programming a week, let alone 168 hours a week!

I'd be surprised if the channel went 24/7 to be honest

I think it could work though but it's going to surely have a lot of non Wrestling related shows with WWE talent, I've heard sit coms are planned, a talk show, a Punk'd style show, WWE movies, a big brother styled show with legends has already been announced

Add that to SuperStars, NXT and Tough Enough as well as new Wrestling Round Table's, then they do have a decent amount of programs that aren't currently Televised as well as exclusive replays of RAW SD and PPV's

I also heard they are looking into a nightly live ESPN styled show where a host has a couple of 'specialists' to talk about kayfabe angles ect...

Can't see the 'network' been a flop at all to be honest, they will have done there homework on what there fans want and no doubt looked at DVD sales for genres such as 'tagged classics' and history of ECW/WCW etc etc. and clearly think theres a huge gap to fill a entire channel with this sort of content...plus you get all the old viewers tuning in to watch classic Nitro, Raw matches...I for one hope this is available in the UK when it starts.

If they have eras on e.g every show and ppv from attitude era they'd get a fair amount of viewers I'd imagine.

enough though?

They're talking about it reaching 40m homes but they only get roughly 4.5m viewers for RAW and how many of them will buy that channel??? If they get a tenth of that figure I'd be amazed

This channel could be monumental, it could see a complete change in business plan.

Accord to a recent report, WWE sees the PPV model as dying. The hefty 45-55 dollar price tag has driven away customers by the hundreds of thousands, accelerated by the ability to see pirate feeds on the Internet. The frequency of PPVs, once two per month during the brand-exclusive experiment a few years ago, also made it a budget-buster for many people. Marquee matches normally reserved for pay per view are now seen week in week out. Will there be pay per views in 2012?

VoiceOfTheVoiceless wrote:Can't see the 'network' been a flop at all to be honest, they will have done there homework on what there fans want and no doubt looked at DVD sales for genres such as 'tagged classics' and history of ECW/WCW etc etc. and clearly think theres a huge gap to fill a entire channel with this sort of content...plus you get all the old viewers tuning in to watch classic Nitro, Raw matches...I for one hope this is available in the UK when it starts.

I don't think they envisaged WBF, XFL, WWE Studios bombing either. Vince McMahon is obsessed at being an entertainment mogul not a wrestling promoter, if the guy stop thinking about other things & concentrated on his core business he maybe able to produce a decent wrestling show.

There wouldn't be any drastic change in PPV line ups in 2012 in my opinion, the problem isn't the volume of PPV's, UFC are proof of that, it's what they try and put on these PPV's that's the problem

Who wants to watch Big Show and Mark Henry again, it's absolutely brutal, they've done two cool spots, busting through the cage and the ring 'exploding', the second was an absolute must to happen on SD, that kind of thing should have happened on TV to make people want to see what happens on PPV

If they offered Pay Per View for free on the network it would make the network more desirable to consumers thus enabling WWE to hike the price up for it to cable distributors, which would surely be key to this being a success.

WWE have been broadcasting pay per views since the mid 80's. UFC haven't been promoting for anywhere near as long. Funnily enough they have just earned a prime time spot on FOX network this could whilst increase there exposure also dilute their pay per view product

They've been doing PPV's since the 80s but in the last five years the numbers for their 'B' PPV's has fallen dramatically and it's down to the same guys having the same matches monthly, they have far to much exposure to the audiance which means by the time PPV's come around that people have no real reason to want to see them.

The only PPV that I've felt that I had to see and would have happily paid for in the last four years since I got back into it is MitB this year, as luck had it we got it as a 'freebie'

the-gaffer wrote:They've been doing PPV's since the 80s but in the last five years the numbers for their 'B' PPV's has fallen dramatically and it's down to the same guys having the same matches monthly, they have far to much exposure to the audiance which means by the time PPV's come around that people have no real reason to want to see them.

The only PPV that I've felt that I had to see and would have happily paid for in the last four years since I got back into it is MitB this year, as luck had it we got it as a 'freebie'

I agree with all of what you say (even down to the MITB pay per view) but all I'm saying is from reports I've heard this is what they plan to do with the network. It could be massively risky because once they've left the pay per view model it'd be hard to go back to it

I've not seen any of those reports to be fair and doubt they would be so drastic, it could happen buut doubtful they'd do it without months of advertising so the audiance has the chance to see it coming and decide whether or not they'll buy the channel

They have a core of about 160,000 who buy almost every PPV, I'd bet 99% that would buy into the network but I'd be shocked if they got much more and if thats the only channel you'd get to see PPV's then I think they risk alienating people who just buy the Rumble, Mania or SummerSlam

I'd assume they'd put 'B' PPVs on the network and the Big 4 and maybe Elimination Chamber and TLC or something like that would be kept as PPV.

I have a few questions

So do you have to pay for the wwe network ?

and will it be avalable in the england ?

Will Sky remain the same in the sense o pay perviews and Raw/smackdown ?

SKY signed a contract with WWE last year, think it was the sual five year deal, if thats the case nothing will change over here to dramatically, you'll most definitely have to pay for the Network, it's only going to be in North America to begin with but it'll surely expand.

My thinking is that it'll be sold on SKY as a seperate entity like ESPN but if they put PPV's on it I don't see how they'll make more money than they do now as I can't see people paying upwards of £15 a month

I assume the idea of putting the lesser PPVs on the Network is not to make more money off of them but to pull in more viewers which would get them more money in the long run with merchandise, going to events and paying for the big PPVs.

My incline is that it won't be available in the UK as a channel. Programmes from the channel maybe broadcast on sky one or sky sports. Raw & pay per views I imagine will retain the same deal on our screens as gaffer points out we're only in the early stages of a new deal.

I think it'll be on cable providers in America. Higher demand for the channel will ramp up the price to cable company's that WWE can charge hence the need for quality programme ie monthly pay per view events for free