Meltzer: You can't blame cord cutting for WWE's declining ratings

[Buggsy Mogues]

Long read but....

Before people start making excuses about cord cutting, cord cutting can’t effect ratings more than one or two percent. The rating is derived by the percentage of homes that get the station, in this case the USA Network. If people no longer get USA Network, they aren’t figured into the percentage. You can argue that wrestling fans are cutting the cord, a term that is almost a joke the way it’s overused, greater than the public at large, but even then that’s a joke.

One year ago, USA Network was in 92.7 million homes. This past week USA Network was in 91.8 million homes. Yes, it is down and cord cutting probably is fair to account for maybe a one percent decline in audience and a zero percent decline in ratings, since those 900,000 homes aren’t figured in to begin with on the ratings. One would also think, with the wrestling audience being more hardcore than ever before, and fewer fans who are more loyal, that if anything, they would be the ones most likely to keep cable since they are willing to spend more money per capita on the product than any audience of wrestling ever. There are just fewer of them than ever before, probably even dating back to the dark ages of 1992 to 1995 when nobody was making money running wrestling companies in the U.S.

Now, to be fair, the business of pro wrestling is doing well with those hardcore fans. WWE attendance is mixed, but it was strong in March, although fell in April and May. WWE ratings were actually not that bad in April. The combination of WrestleMania and the Superstar shakeup saw Smackdown way ahead of last year, and Raw behind last year, but not by a lot.

Ever since the second week after the Superstar shakeup, both shows having fallen to a significant level. Some of that is the NBA Playoffs, but the NBA Playoffs take place every year at the same time.

There is also the argument that there are more ways of consumption of the product. You can subscribe to Hulu and watch the next day. And it is true the need for immediacy is way down. More people by percentage, are DVRing Raw than in the past, although that’s also misleading. If Raw was doing 10 percent increases from DVR viewership at 3.2 million last year, that’s 320,000 more viewers. If they are doing 12.5 percent now at 2.6 million, that 325,000 more viewers. So essentially it’s the same. People do watch YouTube clips, but looking at those numbers is misleading because most of that comes from India and 80 percent is outside the U.S., and in markets the company derives little revenue from.

Is this trouble? It’s not good. But generally, television ratings are down. Raw and Total Divas are both down well more than the decline of television on average. Smackdown is up, but Smackdown is an unfair comparison given its move to Tuesday live and having an exclusive roster. Perhaps you can argue that the increase in Smackdown is part of the reason for the decline in Raw, and that the combination is relatively even. Come July, when Smackdown is the same as it was a year earlier, as would be Raw, measuring the decline or lack thereof will be notable. My gut says that Raw will continue to decline, and Smackdown’s numbers will be well below the previous year.

The problem is that it’s also not cost-effective. At 22 cents per viewer per show, if Raw does 3 million viewers per week and Smackdown does 2.5 million, numbers that both shows are unlikely to be reaching on a consistent regular basis unless there is a turnaround, that’s $1.21 million per week or $63 million per year. Wrestling costs USA in the range of $160 million.

Still, there is other value. USA gets money per home from the cable companies. Would the cable companies want to cut back on USA without wrestling? USA’s big claim is that they are consistently top five in prime time ratings, and have been No. 1 most recent years. Take away the five hours of WWE, they would not be top ten.

But benefits of other programming is it can be replayed over-and-over, and USA can also sell original programs overseas. They can sell the rights many ways and have digital distribution as well down the line. With Raw and Smackdown, they don’t have those revenue streams since WWE owns the shows and derives the revenue for any of those type of usages.

From a cost-effective standpoint, a show that does one-third the audience will do more advertising revenue than WWE.

As far as 2019 goes, when the USA contract is up, are these ratings going to pose a problem?

There is no way of knowing. Most stations won’t drop their top rated show, and with USA’s other programming falling badly and the station unable to make new hits like they used to do regularly, wrestling is farm more valuable than ever before, at least for total ratings. There is the argument that USA can also advertise its new shows before more eyeballs if they keep WWE. Plus, generally, programming rights have been going up even with audiences declining.

If nobody else wants it, and there is a change at the top (Bonnie Hammer, who runs USA and several other NBCU cable networks is a major fan of Vince McMahon) like what happened with TBS and TNT in 2001, and they think bottom line rather than fighting for No. 1, WWE could be in major trouble. With the WWE Network, they will survive in that situation, although will have to make major cuts, and it will be much harder to create new fans. Still, the Internet is a strong way to reach and maintain hardcore fans. This also may explain the attempt to reach out and try and create local stars in foreign markets. In the dark ages, when the U.S. wrestling scene was struggling badly, WWE did lose money, but they still did well in Europe and Canada.

 

[Da King]

so he's high key giving the GOAT his props

GOATsso was drawing 8 MILLION people, RAW now doing 2.6 million

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

If nobody else wants it, and there is a change at the top (Bonnie Hammer, who runs USA and several other NBCU cable networks is a major fan of Vince McMahon) like what happened with TBS and TNT in 2001, and they think bottom line rather than fighting for No. 1, WWE could be in major trouble

Very true. If NBCU decides to change course with USA they could be the odd man out

 

[Tide Run This]

Yeah I heard this last night that cord cutting shyt don't fly

 

[JerseyBoy23]

I see nothing wrong with the bolded, nothing but truth.

 

[Tide Run This]

Very true. If NBCU decides to change course with USA they could be the odd man out

What's a network that picks them up? They might be shyt out of luck only one I think would spend is a network like FS1 that needs something to air in primetime I don't see ESPN wasting any time they got enough money issues. Lot of these other basic cable channels seem to have an agenda in place with what they wanna show

 

[Da King]

South Park has been on the air for like 20 years and their highest rated shows have happened in the last few years. So the chord cutting/people watching on their iPhones BS excuses need to stop

RATINGS ARE THE ONLY INDICATOR of quality



Yes the WWE makes more money now, because there are 100x more revenue streams for the WWE to make money that wasn't there before. Imagine the subscriber count for the WWF Network in 1999

 

[Tide Run This]

South Park has been on the air for like 20 years and their highest rated shows have happened in the last few years. So the chord cutting/people watching on their iPhones BS excuses need to stop

RATINGS ARE THE ONLY INDICATOR of quality



Yes the WWE makes more money now, because there are 100x more revenue streams for the WWE to make money that wasn't there before. Imagine the subscriber count for the WWF Network in 1999

Really wish one of these neck beard crowds just shyt all over the product legit live one night not in an "we are awesome" type of way just a we want something better just legit go away heat for entire product Vince will wake up then not a boo Roman reigns deal a boo every fukking character on the show but these neckbeards won't dare boo they favorite vanilla midgets

 

[JerseyBoy23]

South Park has been on the air for like 20 years and their highest rated shows have happened in the last few years. So the chord cutting/people watching on their iPhones BS excuses need to stop

RATINGS ARE THE ONLY INDICATOR of quality



Yes the WWE makes more money now, because there are 100x more revenue streams for the WWE to make money that wasn't there before. Imagine the subscriber count for the WWF Network in 1999

You just reminded me of a thread idea I had once. I have no idea why they don't advertise outside of WWE programming. It would be a goldmine if they could find lapsed fans who have no problem shelling out 9.99.

 

[Da King]

Really wish one of these neck beard crowds just shyt all over the product legit live one night not in an "we are awesome" type of way just a we want something better just legit go away heat for entire product Vince will wake up then not a boo Roman reigns deal a boo every fukking character on the show but these neckbeards won't dare boo they favorite vanilla midgets

Sadly the casual audience, who actually went to the show to enjoy and boo the heels and cheer the faces, are long gone

 

[cartierhoe]

so he's high key giving the GOAT his props

GOATsso was drawing 8 MILLION people, RAW now doing 2.6 million

May as well, the product is fukking ass

 

[prophecypro]

Cut an hour and give them Ryan Ward

 

[Dog Based Gremlin]

so he's high key giving the GOAT his props

GOATsso was drawing 8 MILLION people, RAW now doing 2.6 million

Let me help everyone out with the new nickname for Russo...

Spoiler

Vince DREWsso

 

[Da King]

Let me help everyone out with the new nickname for Russo...

Spoiler

Vince DREWsso

Imagine Vince DREWsso writing for Draw Lesnar, we'd be back to Attitude Era numbers

@Heelish

 

[qnsfinest]

first of all fukk "da king".

2nd, you almost feel at some point you should give Russo a chance. Don't give him complete control, but let it be monitored and take it from there. He did a great job with TNA, they were getting their highest ratings with Russo in charge.

WWE already has one of the best rosters of pure wrestlers ever assembled. I'm sure Russo can give them character, sure it might be dumb shyt like "fat chick thrilla" but the casual viewers love dumb soap opera type shyt.