Minor news items that don't deserve a thread

[Ambulance Chaser]

I thought their was a book thread but can't find it, just reading Bob Backlunds autobiography, just under half way through and really would recommend it, never knew too much about him but it's a fascinating read.

[Benno]

And it hasn't launched in India, Japan or Germany yet, surely some of their biggest markets.

That's not really as big as you'd think. India is an unknown, everyone including TNA has been trying cracking it, NJPW World is hardly setting the world on fire in Japan and WWE said themselves on the conference call Germany isn't a place where people tend to pay for premium TV in big numbers.

 

These conference calls are always fun to listen to though, even just to hear Vince grunting on the line in the quiet moments as he gets more exasperated. Love that he does these as well as his million other duties. What a bloke.

 

It was interesting to hear them get challenged on the falling ratings, even if the ones they publish look better than the ones we've all seen recently because they've been massaged to include replays and DVR views. They downplayed it as only one metric, but you have to think it's bothering them. Could be a big issue when they come to renew their deals if things don't rebound.

 

Chris Harrington has a good piece on the Observer site talking all this, and the India/Germany/Japan thing:

 

http://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/everything-you-need-know-todays-wwe-q3-financial-call-200681

Edited October 30, 2015 by Benno

[Callum1993]

I thought their was a book thread but can't find it, just reading Bob Backlunds autobiography, just under half way through and really would recommend it, never knew too much about him but it's a fascinating read.

 

I haven't read it yet but I did hear him on the PW Torch Livecast with Wade Keller talking about it. Pretty excruciating hearing Keller completely suck up to Backlund. My favourite line personally was Backlund saying something like 'When you read this book you'll get to know me in depth like a brother' and Keller says something along the lines of 'Oh yeah totally I totally felt that' Ugh. 

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

 

 

1.2m is a really strong number for them, especially for this time of the year, when interest is generally low. In the Network's early months I remember thinking that they would struggle to ever hit that one million number that they were publicly aiming for. Over $12m dollars coming in every month from the Network puts Del Rio's contract into some perspective.

 

One thing they've swept under the carpet is that it was 1,000,000 DOMESTIC users. Apparently they havn't hit that number yet domestically, though are close.

 

I still think it's a great accomplishment, but the fact they conveniently ignore the original goal is humorous to me. 

 

 

A company isn't going to publicly celebrate it's failings.

 

 

No of course not (and nor did I say they should). Bet then it's quite another thing to literally retcon your original goal and pretend you never said the original goal in the first place.

 

I just remember when Triple H came out on Raw and said something along the lines of "PEOPLE said we'd never reach our goal of hitting million subscribers...." and I'm just sitting there thinking "no.... people doubted you hit your goal of a million domestic subscribers. And you haven't yet."

 

You're right that a company shouldn't "celebrate" it's failings. But that is actually what they ARE doing by celebrating the goal as if they secured it, when really they moved the goal post after failing to hit the target by their target date.

 

Like I said, good on them. Getting 1.2 million subscribers is ace regardless. But I can't help but admire the WWE's style for rewriting history.   

[Sphinx]

Come off it - they're a business. They have to self-promote and put things in a good light. They're not going to be modest; they're going to use whatever they can get to show stockholders they're on the right path and put their brand across as bigger to consumers.

[Benno]

They need to be careful about outright lying too though.

 

They pulled ridiculous stats out of thin air about millions and millions of homes in the US having someone with "an affinity" to WWE in them to justify daft Network projections. There are ongoing lawsuits over misleading shareholders on how massive their TV deal was supposedly going to be.

[The Clint]

WWE have always been known to exaggerate viewing stats. Remember the intro to programming in '97 which said "To over half a billion viewers each week" ? It really meant this many people had access to the shows but they tried to make it look like the actual number of viewers worldwide.

Edited October 30, 2015 by The Clint

[Benno]

My favourite is when Vince has to admit to shareholders some of the inflated attendance figures they've given are for "entertainment purposes". Carny wrestling and the real world stock market can be the odd mix at times.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Benno

[King Pitcos]

It was interesting to hear them get challenged on the falling ratings, even if the ones they publish look better than the ones we've all seen recently because they've been massaged to include replays and DVR views. They downplayed it as only one metric, but you have to think it's bothering them. Could be a big issue when they come to renew their deals if things don't rebound.

The current deal is 5 or 10 years or something isn't it? Traditional telly might be gone or unrecognisable by then anyway. This deal was WWE's last smash and grab at a near-obsolete medium.

[Chest Rockwell]

Even if the medium isn't you have to think the metrics and methods by which they measure them are going to have to change drastically.

[King Pitcos]

Advertisers must be pushing for an overhaul. The dirty bastards who run the Internet can profile you to a tee with their spying, but TV still depends on a tiny sample. How many Nielsen households are there in the US? How many actual Raw viewers count as a million?

[Benno]

The current deal is 5 or 10 years or something isn't it? Traditional telly might be gone or unrecognisable by then anyway. This deal was WWE's last smash and grab at a near-obsolete medium.

It’s a 5 year deal I believe, but yeah that’s a fair point, nobody knows what the landscape will be in 5 years. It’s a weird time, it seems all the big sports leagues want a Network type service but cable TV is still where all the big money is that’s keeping them afloat. The NFL and the NBA have massive deals with the big networks through 2022 and 2025, respectively.

 

I think either way in the future it’s unlikely the major cable networks wouldn’t be involved in some form providing a service, whether we’re all still watching telly through cable boxes or through online streaming hologram virtual reality gizmos.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Benno

[Benno]

Even if the medium isn't you have to think the metrics and methods by which they measure them are going to have to change drastically.

Yeah they're the best they have but Nielson type systems are shite. I'm sure Herbie would attest.

 

The fluctuations in the ROH and TNA ratings recently have been ridiculous. Apparently ROH did something like 100,000 more viewers this week for a show that had Moose and Donovan Dijack on it. 90% of the people who watch TNA are in their 60's according to the data half the time too. Maybe that one is correct though.

[King Pitcos]

Most people who watch wrestling are old as fuck. Was that the case in the attitude era too? Although depressingly, I've just realised that people who were my age when Austin gave Vince his first stunner would be 50 now.

[Snitsky's back acne]

http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2015/1031/603301/wwe-nxt-star-dresses-as-cm-punk/

NXT held a Halloween Fancy Dress battle royal last night. Pictures via the link above. Notable were Finn Balor dressed as CM Punk and Aiden English dressed as Kevin Owens.