Per Meltz: Fox wants 3.3 million viewers for SmackDown

[Da King]

 

[NYChase718]

Plus look! A famous person with a verified check commented on it!

HAR HAR HAR!!

He thinks its cenas old gimmick

 

[Kidd Dibiase]

Fox found something new to give the ax to
And wasted no time letting them know lol

 

[PortCityProphet]

I cant wait for this to crash and burn
They'll never hit 3.3 on a friday.
Wrestling isnt popular. Nobody cares about it in the casual world. Nobody sits around and watches wrestling as background noise at bars like they do real sports.
This bout to get the boot quicker than a NY nikka when a timberland design drop

 

[RammerJammer]

I cant wait for this to crash and burn
They'll never hit 3.3 on a friday.
Wrestling isnt popular. Nobody cares about it in the casual world. Nobody sits around and watches wrestling as background noise at bars like they do real sports.
This bout to get the boot quicker than a NY nikka when a timberland design drop

SmackDown getting canceled for reruns of Method & Red

 

[PortCityProphet]

SmackDown getting canceled for reruns of Method & Red

We bout to get Wanda at Large back

 

[Coco Brown]

The fukk are you even saying? Losing viewers year after year isn't a "work". It's reality. This is what they get for being on cruise control and being aloof to their audience.

Yup. I compare WWE's television wrestling shows to soaps for a reason and it has very little to do with content and everything to do with how both lost huge segments of their viewing audience and why.

From a television perspective both are generational niche programming. Meaning, people who watch soaps got turned on them usually because an older relative watched and they introduced them to "their" show (relatedly, this is also how people became loyal to ABC vs CBS vs NBC soaps, which is parallel to how people became partial to NWA vs WWE or WWE vs WCW) they become fans themselves and in turn introduce it to a younger relative or their kid (when it becomes age appropriate). They both cycle in and out of popularity with the *general* public (ex. how huge the numbers were for Luke and Laura's wedding on General Hospital or how wrestling was seemingly everywhere during the Attitude Era) but are sustained by a core group that remains supportive in their viewership during times when the shows aren't as popular with Joe Q. Public.

There was a time when soaps were considered a cornerstone of daytime programming. Those days are over. Now, you have soaps like Days of Our Lives getting renewed on a year to year basis and both NBC and ABC have ONE soap left on their entire daytime roster. Ratings have bottomed out, younger viewers are not tuning in, and the genre has been on life support for the last few years with rumors of cancellation dogging two of the last remaining four shows *every* year. Why?

A lot of different things factor in, but long story short, they stopped listening to their core audience and then started actively ignoring and antagonising them. Brian Frons, former head of ABCDaytime went so far as to say they'd "train" the audience to accept what they were being given and that those complaining would learn to like it. Dude essentially cut an old Ric Flair promo and was like "Either like it, or don't like it, but learn to love it." The overall attitude was, viewers may complain but they were too loyal to actually tune out and stay gone. It was the wrong attitude to take. Viewers said "I don't have to take this. You need me, not the other way around. I can always find something *good* to watch." and they tuned out. Viewership hit record lows, ad dollars started looking funny in the light and eventually the shows died and the one ABC soap remaining is barely hanging on.

Where this parallels w/Vince and WWE is this: You have a company bound and determined to ignore feedback, while at the same time actively showing contempt for their audience while *also* not being able to create new viewers without that same audience and feeling that their audience will watch regardless. And the numbers are starting to show them, at least when it comes to RAW, that attitude isn't working anymore.

It's not about letting your audience run your show. It's about taking consistent feedback and underlying complaints into consideration and adjusting accordingly. Example: Specific complaint is *insert name of babyface here* deserves better booking. You're gonna get a million of those, all with a different babyface being named. So obviously, you can't appease everyone. BUT the key is to look for the underlying complaint. And with that, the underlying complaint is "babyfaces get crap booking these days". You fix the underlying complaint because *that* is what's going to resonate with the majority of your audience. Maybe ___ doesn't get a mega push, but if booking for babyfaces as a whole improves, your overall audience satisfaction improves b/c you've fixed the base complaint. The specific complaint is "Why are we seeing Rollins vs. Ziggler for the 45289 time?". The underlying complaint is "We want to see new match ups." You fix that, you get audience satisfaction (Points to how lit everyone was for Ali vs. D-Bry). The specific complaint is "Brock is never on the show" but the underlying complaint is that the Universal Champion has no presence. He doesn't need to show up and fight every week but there are ways to make his presence felt (promos,video packages, interviews, ect) so it doesn't feel like RAW has no champion. With television, especially episodic television, you have to find a way to keep the integrity of your narrative storytelling arc without completely ignoring the things that your audience is consistently telling you aren't working for them. Because if you don't, they eventually change the channel and, traditionally, once viewers leave, they tend to stay gone (points at The Walking Dead)

It's simple stuff that WWE refuses to do or takes forever to do. Their saving grace is that they have other streams of revenue and aren't just relying on television. Fox, on the other hand, is in the business of television. And in television, if it don't make ad dollars, then it don't make sense to keep it on the air. Fox isn't going to play these record low rating reindeer games if the ad money starts looking funny. I'm honestly curious to see how WWE reacts to having to play by regular network television rules with a company that is notorious for being quick on the cancellation draw.

 

[AquaCityBoy]

We are aware Fox is a major network, right?

3.3 million on a Friday night is not outlandish.

 

[Francis White]

Bring back Goatso and let the product have an edge. On prime time TV you need water cooler moments to get the casual fans to stick. The main eventers need to be in main event fueds . No more wack wrestlers.
Lana
Iconics
Ty
Mojo
Zack
Need to be cut or sent back to NXT.
If Lana stays she needs to be the next sable , Stacey type character.

 

[MenacingMonk]

Canceled after the first month.

Sucks it had to be SD

 

[MenacingMonk]

"You guys meant 3.3 million per month right?"

They still wouldn’t average that much.

 

[Tres Leches]

 

[NYChase718]

 

[Kings County]

not with these boring ass storylines and weak ass characters
bring that attitude era feeling back and they might pull 4 or 5 million viewers

 

[Jello Biafra]

We are aware Fox is a major network, right?

3.3 million on a Friday night is not outlandish.

The current Fox Friday night shows Last Man Standing and The Cool Kids get around 6 million and 4 million respectively.