WCW Worldwide on ITV Sat Afternoon 92-95 - Ratings?

[The Dart]

Kid Chocolate.  It was a different time.

[David Mantell]

3 hours ago, The Dart said:

Kid Chocolate.  It was a different time.

Alan Bardouille. Good dropkick. But of a grumpy old so and so backstage. Died a few years ago.

 

 

 

[David Mantell]

4 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

This "ratings" thread >>> all other ratings chat.

Well the trouble seems to be that no one quite knows. Although I'm surprised no one thought to ask at the time.

Fin Martin claimed in The Powerslam Years e-book some time back that WWF on Sky was obviously getting more viewing figures because it was more accessible than WCW on ITV. This strikes me as ABSURD.  Surely there were more homes total in ITV areas that got WCW than there were homes with an Astra satellite dish in the UK? Therefore WCW's potential market share 1990-1995 was far greater.

WCW could easily have gone to Wembley summer 1993 and done its own Summerslam 92 headlined by Davey beating Vader for the WCW title only to lose it back at the next Clash of the Champions stateside.

[SuperBacon]

I remember getting WCW figures and the ring before ever seeing any footage I'm sure of it, and this would've been 90/91, so they must've been doing fairly well here to get the merchandise in stores.

The figures were absolutely shit obviously.

[Merzbow]

18 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

I remember getting WCW figures and the ring before ever seeing any footage I'm sure of it, and this would've been 90/91, so they must've been doing fairly well here to get the merchandise in stores.

The figures were absolutely shit obviously.

It was the only way to get a Sid Justice for what seemed like ages, though.

[The Dart]

My mum bought me the entire box of WCW trading cards from a shop before I even knew what WCW was...must have been late 1991.   Ric Flair was in them pre WWE, but I knew him from WWE, I don't think I knew who any of the others were, maybe one or two.  I had to ask her what WCW stood for - she knew somehow (probably said it on the box).  I must have started watching it on ITV shortly after that.

[Infinity Land]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

Well the trouble seems to be that no one quite knows. Although I'm surprised no one thought to ask at the time.

BARB has always been well under 10k households participating. So for regional programming with no fixed time slot it'd be a nightmare to come up with a credible number.

The TV industry and reporting on it was a lot different here than the US. What with only 4 main channels, two of which being the BBC. There just wasn't really the need or demand for daily/weekly in-depth summaries. Certainly not from a general public point of view.  Outside of the "who won the night" type coverage there wasn't really much said at the time that would have survived through to today.

Hidden away on the BARB website are pdfs of the old Monthly Viewing Summaries that were sent out to subscribers. Covers the early 80s until 1998 when things moved online. While there's usually a monthly Top 50, most of the information is about overall channel viewership as that was a more realistic measurement to keep.

 

 

 

 

 

[David Mantell]

4 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I remember getting WCW figures and the ring before ever seeing any footage I'm sure of it, and this would've been 90/91, so they must've been doing fairly well here to get the merchandise in stores.

The figures were absolutely shit obviously.

I did say viewing figures, to be fair to myself.

[David Mantell]

2 hours ago, Infinity Land said:

BARB has always been well under 10k households participating. So for regional programming with no fixed time slot it'd be a nightmare to come up with a credible number.

The TV industry and reporting on it was a lot different here than the US. What with only 4 main channels, two of which being the BBC. There just wasn't really the need or demand for daily/weekly in-depth summaries. Certainly not from a general public point of view.  Outside of the "who won the night" type coverage there wasn't really much said at the time that would have survived through to today.

Hidden away on the BARB website are pdfs of the old Monthly Viewing Summaries that were sent out to subscribers. Covers the early 80s until 1998 when things moved online. While there's usually a monthly Top 50, most of the information is about overall channel viewership as that was a more realistic measurement to keep.

WCW wasn't quite local programming and it wasn't quite networked either. It got screened in a majority of ITV areas in a roughly similar timeslot - Saturday afternoon or lunchtime, but not in a SYNDICATED slot. A significant minority of ITV regions opted out which was rare (but not entirely unheard of viz the final match not shown in Scotland) for the standalone ITV wrestling 1985-1988 and probably impossible for World of Sport. It did have the one advantage that if ITV wrestling got preempted it got preempted across the network whereas a region could un-preempt and reschedule WCW Worldwide Viz Central in summer 1992 putting it on Sunday 2pm one time.

@JNLister knows a lot about ratings for ITV Wrestling, maybe he would have some idea about WCW Worldwide 1992-1995. It stayed on for 3 years until Superchannel poached it, so it can't have been that much of a flop!

Edited January 16, 2025 by David Mantell

[David Mantell]

9 hours ago, The Dart said:

Kid Chocolate.  It was a different time.

This was Belgium in 2017:

 

Edited January 16, 2025 by David Mantell

[mim731]

15 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I remember getting WCW figures and the ring before ever seeing any footage I'm sure of it, and this would've been 90/91, so they must've been doing fairly well here to get the merchandise in stores.

The figures were absolutely shit obviously.

I'm pretty sure I had those Galoob ones before the WWF Hasbros. Toys R Us in Wood Green always had loads of them and fairly cheaply, where you had to go to the little, more expensive toy shop upstairs in Shopping City to get a decent range of Hasbros. My folks definitely would have opted ofr the cheaper option 9/10 times, and I did not care. The fact they had them in a big toy shop (as well as a big Sting poster I eventually got, and the WCW board game/the Atari game) shows there was definietly a market so presumably the TV coverage had a certain amount of reach. 

[TibBo]

The toy figures were well distributed because Galoob had a partnership with Hornby in the UK, so you would find them pretty much anywhere you would find diecast/trainsets etc.

I remember not being able to buy WCW stickers in the shops, and ended-up getting the album from one of those ex-catalogue type places with 100 packs of stickers included.

I have been trying to think why I never really watched WCW on a Saturday afternoon, even though I was wrestling-mad at the time, and I guess what seems like a good time slot on the surface,  is actually a pretty awful time slot for the demographic they are aiming for (8-14ish?).

By 10.30ish I’d be out the house playing football/tracking/riding my bike etc, and probably wouldn’t be home until teatime. Saturday morning time slot with the cartoons (like WWF used to do with Superstars/Mania etc) was much better for kids.

On the odd occasion that I was in the house on a Saturday afternoon, my dad would be watching grandstand/final-score etc, so there was no way I was getting access to the TV anyway…

I remember having to wait until half-time in the Sunday afternoon game, to quickly have 15 minutes of access to the tv to watch a bit of All American Wrestling on sky 1.

[davertfnewman]

Does anyone remember a WCW profiles book, possibly packed with colouring or puzzle books, that had a pretty good collection of photos from house shows, but seemed to be written by someone with now the best product knowledge? This led to characterising some talent pretty lazy with phrases like "Rick Rude IS Mr. Sexy!" and "Bobby Eaton IS Mr. Beautiful!". Believe they also listed Michael Hayes' likes as "Sex, drink and rock 'n' roll".

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, TibBo said:

have been trying to think why I never really watched WCW on a Saturday afternoon, even though I was wrestling-mad at the time, and I guess what seems like a good time slot on the surface,  is actually a pretty awful time slot for the demographic they are aiming for (8-14ish?).

The same demographic were tuning in to see Big Daddy on the same date, timeslot and channel 5-10 years earlier.

Personally tracking, biking and football were never my thing but I'm sure plenty of my classmates in the 80s did all that stuff and still tuned in 4pm. The "everything stopped" cliche wasn't quite true, people just hung around shop windows and in the electrical sections of department stores to watch wrestling (I remember watching at Rumbelow's in Loughton Essex when Mike Bennett came in the ring to formally issue a challenge to British Welterweight Champion Danny Collins whom he had recently beaten in a non title fight (they gave each other a high five each and that apparently was tantamount to a contract signing.) but certainly if you had to be out and about you still found ways to watch it and cared not if it was a "Sad" way to go watch a TV show.

WCW Worldwide was less of an institution than that although it put a lot of the pieces back together after only a few short years.

Edited January 18, 2025 by David Mantell

[TibBo]

I guess a lot happened in those 5/10 years to give kids other options? Megadrive/Snes/Sky & cable with dedicated kids channels/premier league launched/a decline in serial killers making it safe to leave the house…