WWE Network finally happening

[Guest kidd]

it'd be cool if they aired FCw and whatever OVW they got.

[sek69]

Pretty sure WWE doesn't want anyone outside of the local area seeing the developmental guys, so they can repackage them when they get to WWE and no one will be "Hey, that's X from FCW!". I know OVW used to sell DVDs of their TV show on their website until WWE made them stop (they stream episodes now, but they aren't affiliated anymore). I seem to recall they purposely put FCW on local affiliates instead of the Fox Sports station (Sun Sports? I forget what they call the Florida channel) so only the local market would see it.

 

Also another point to consider: WWE was pretty tight with the NBC family of networks due to the long association with USA. Comcast now owns NBC/Universal so they have a pretty big "in" to carriage on the largest cable company in the US. If they clear that, it pretty much would make the channel a success just for that. Television is very much a monkey-see, monkey-do kind of business and if one of the big boys picks up a channel, the others will follow suit.

[tomk]

A couple of years ago when this idea was being tossed around I said " Hey aren't we going to be moving to a la carte Cable in the next couple of years". And will it hasn't happened yet but:

 

http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?...6&gt1=33002

[jdw]

We're a long way from it. The guy speaking is the prez of Suddenlink, which doesn't have a pot to piss in when it comes to the big picture:

 

22,525,000 Comcast Corporation

19,433,000 DirecTV

14,056,000 Dish Network Corporation

12,235,000 Time Warner Cable, Inc.

4,838,000 Cox Communications, Inc.

4,413,000 Charter Communications, Inc.

3,848,000 Verizon Communications, Inc.

3,407,000 AT&T, Inc.

3,284,000 Cablevision Systems Corporation

2,139,000 Bright House Networks LLC

1,274,000 Suddenlink Communications

1,139,000 Mediacom Communications Corporation

680,000 Insight Communications Company, Inc.

637,000 CableOne, Inc.

421,000 WideOpenWest Networks, LLC

338,000 RCN Corp.

263,000 Knology Holdings

261,000 Atlantic Broadband Group, LLC

243,000 Armstrong Cable Services

219,000 Service Electric Cable TV Incorporated

205,000 Midcontinent Communications

185,000 MetroCast Cablevision

173,000 Blue Ridge Communications

147,000 General Communications

141,000 NewWave Communications

 

If you ever see TWC & Comcast say something along these lines, they'll just be saying it to put some pressure on ESPN/Disney, the NFL Network, the Big 10 Network and Fox.

 

TWC is part of Time Warner, which has dozens of channels that they are getting a subscriber fee for off being on Basic. Comcast just bought NBC Universal because they smell the future: being able to charge Basic Fees for the Big 4 Networks... and they smell more $$$ than ESPN is currently rolling in. TW and Comcast don't want to see the system go to a la cart: they have a vested interest in preventing that. Combined, they have 36.0% of the households.

 

I think we've talked about this before that it's highly likely that all of the large pieces on this board will merge into the following laps:

 

Cable: Comcast & TW

Telecoms: Verizon & ATT

Dish: Direct/Dish

 

There will be some minnows, but those will be the big boys. I don't think anyone of us would be surprised if Direct and Dish merge sometime in out lifetimes, especially if the Telecoms continue to bleed off subs. Eventually, Verizon and ATT will wisely agree to buy one of the Cable companies each and roll those services into their own, grabbing both content and households at the same time. It's even possible that before that point, Verizon & ATT will go the route that Comcast already did: buy a major content provider. Disney and CBS are still out there... Disney perhaps less than CBS where Rudstone is an old man not long for the world. Still, Disney and CBS are small compared to the telecoms.

 

Anyway, other than the Dish companies, in the long term it won't be in the interest of the Big Boys (Comast & TW) and their likely eventual buyers or buyers of other channels (ATT & Verizon) to see a la cart. They have too great of an incentive to *not* lower the price to the customers.

 

We're in an era of looting. It doesn't help to loot to lower the prices of services we all want where the costs are buried.

 

John

[Sean Liska]

The latest from today's WO update:

 

"-- YouTube Set to Announce TV Initiative With 100 Niche Channels. One of those channels is going to WWE. This is almost certainly the first roll-out of the new WWE Network which the company has claimed will launch around WrestleMania of 2012. This would certainly solve the problem of trying to get clearances on over-the-air television, but it's also certainly not what most fans were expecting when they heard WWE was planning to launch its own network."

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/yout...-poehler-254370

 

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118045254

[Guest Slickster]

To their credit, WWE's figured out how to turn a profit on this thing since Google's going to pay them $5 million a year to run this channel.

[flyonthewall2983]

I guess this means Mania stays on PPV.

[Matt D]

Part of me is a little excited for the new content, no matter how we get it. So long as the stuff exists, it'll be somehow accessible to people who want to put it online.

[El-P]

Part of me is a little excited for the new content, no matter how we get it. So long as the stuff exists, it'll be somehow accessible to people who want to put it online.

I wouldn't say excited, but I admit I'm curious about some "new content". I don't get my hopes up though.

[flyonthewall2983]

Does this mean the On Demand service stays?

[jdw]

To their credit, WWE's figured out how to turn a profit on this thing since Google's going to pay them $5 million a year to run this channel.

Not sure if it will end up $5M:

 

Insiders said the Google-owned property has shelled out some $150 million in advances for the creation of about 100 channels, with a maximum $5 million going to any single channel. Financial details were sketchy on Friday, though The Wall Street Journal reported that deals call for YouTube recouping its advances then giving as much as 55 percent of the ad revenue to the content creators.

Initial max is $5M, which would be an advance. If the WWE was at the high end of that, it's:

 

* $5M to WWE

* Google keeps all the ad revenue until reaching that $5M

* possible other "costs" on Google's part on top of that $5M

* then the WWE get up to 55% of ad revenue after that

 

Google is the king of sucking ad money out of the online world at a time when others, even a high traffic site like the WWE, have issues doing do. Probably a reason why the WWE is willing to do business with Google: tap into ad money that they'll have a problem getting.

 

That said... I'm not 100% sold yet that this will be "The WWE Network" in exactly the same fashion as we'll eventually see on Cable. It doesn't make a great deal of sense for the WWE to undercut their own network that could generate considerable more revenue for just a $5M advance from Google where it's not even clear how long it's expected before they reach the revenue sharing point (six months? year? two years?). In turn, if the WWE Network is able to get on Basic in the following 5 out of the Top 8 providers:

 

22,525,000 Comcast Corporation

19,433,000 DirecTV

14,056,000 Dish Network Corporation

3,848,000 Verizon Communications, Inc.

3,407,000 AT&T, Inc.

 

At $0.08 a month per household:

 

63,269,000 * 0.08 * 12 = $60,738,240 per year.

 

On the list I included Comcast because:

 

* WWE's deals are currently largely Comcast (USA Network / SciFy)

* Comcast is a good partner in creating a Network

 

Verizon and AT&T seem to be easier at cutting deals since they want to offer alternatives to Cable, and one of the ways is to offer stuff that Cable doesn't. The Dish companies have historically done the same, though have had some issues recently with content providers.

 

I left of TWC, Cox and Charter as they might be tougher sales... though that's where the power of Comcast comes in during the long term, especially if it gets a cut.

 

Would the WWE really want to draw viewers away from banging their service providers to get WWE Net onto Basic when they could go watch it on Youtube "for free"? $60M+ vs $5M+?

 

Perhaps the WWE thinks that working with Google is a cheap way to do a network. But it's really hard seeing them grow that business into something that will be pulling in $50M+ a year. I'm not even sure if $5M covers the cost of producing the content to fill the network to a degree where it will draw enough advertising to move beyond the $5M advance.

 

My guess is that what gets rolled out onto Youtube is a heck of a lot that's already been on the old 24/7 rather than "new content". :/

 

John

[Guest Slickster]

If WWE can't get their network on the cable systems they want and get the compensation they feel they deserve, then I expect they will put all of their new WWE Network original programming onto this YouTube channel and act as if doing a YouTube-only WWE Network was their plan all along.

[flyonthewall2983]

God, it's as if the company has been taking steroids since it seems they don't have balls to do anything.

[kjh]

New WWE Network survey tells us their latest programming ideas

[FLIK]

A couple of those actually don't sound so bad. I'd watch the ones about Foley visiting amusement parks and the behind the sceens look at the road crew.

[Loss]

I'm hardly the person they should market to, so take this with a grain of salt, but I would be way more excited about a network with ZERO original programming that would just play stuff from their library around the clock. It's probably a good idea for them to have original programming, so I'm not criticizing, just saying it would be far cooler to me if they would do a series where they would re-air an old PPV after airing all the TV that built up to it (in a smartly edited way).

[kjh]

That would certainly be a lot cheaper than spending tons of money on producing reality TV shows that may fall on their face.

[tomk]

Is the reality Tv stuff being done in house or are they contracting experienced reality Tv production companies to do them?

[Guest Slickster]

I'd expect WWE to hire reality production people to do it. No way they have the manpower to produce more TV than they already do.

[NintendoLogic]

Stone Cold Steve Austin and his counterpart, a refined beer expert, visit a different local brewery, pub, or beer fest/competition each week in different U.S. cities. Follow the tour bus online by accessing the show's interactive GPS map and join Stone Cold as he meets the owners of different establishments around the country; learns how the beer gets made, learns what to eat with specific beers and on the whole, just has a great time. If you'd watch this show, give me a ‘hell yeah!'

I'd love to watch this just to see if Austin becomes a full-fledged beer snob by the end of the series. No more Steveweisers, only Stevemay and Stevefish Head.

[flyonthewall2983]

Sounds like the shows Oz Clarke and James May did for BBC, going across Britain (and in one case, California) to find the drink that defines Great Britain.

[kjh]

Court Bauer is still saying that WWE doesn't have a business plan for their network and Vince hasn't even thought about the programming schedule yet. Court claims Vince even tried to buy Universal HD from Viacom.

[rovert]

Jason Powell said that WWE staffers have been told that they wouldnt get paid extra for WWE Network work. A situation similar to what happened in 1999 with Russo & Ferrera not being paid for writing Smackdown.

[jdw]

Court Bauer is still saying that WWE doesn't have a business plan for their network and Vince hasn't even thought about the programming schedule yet. Court claims Vince even tried to buy Universal HD from Viacom.

So Vince thought Viacom owned it... or is Court confused? Since Vince's primary tv partner (Comcast / NBC Universal) owns Universal HD, it's basically impossible to think that Vince (and/or people in the WWE) don't know that Universal HD = Universal.

 

I kinda call bullshit on that one.

 

John

[jdw]

BTW, did anyone notice how much Dave was talking about "advertising" in this weeks WON, and no mention of carriage fees?

 

There was this long section:

 

An interesting note regarding the challenges of doing this network were noted by John Carroll, who recently talked to the NHL’s Chief Operating Officer, John Collins, and discussed the challenges in doing the NHL Network, figuring that if cable systems clear the WWE Network, it would be put in a similar sports specialty tier and treated similar to the NHL and NBA Network.

 

Collins noted that the NHL Network was first cleared in the U.S. in 2007, and it took until 2009 to get significant clearances on cable systems. But he also noted that even though they had clearances by 2009, it wasn’t until earlier this year that they started getting any significant level of advertising revenue. For the first 18 months it was nothing by infomercials and advertising for in-house products. Most likely, the WWE Network at first will be filled with in-house ads and probably leverage its web sponsors to good deals to get in on the ground floor with the network, but those won’t generate significant revenue at first either.

 

While I would think a WWE Network would be more successful in getting viewers than an NHL Network, because wrestling is a stronger television property, that doesn’t mean it’ll do any better with advertisers since the NHL is believed to appeal to higher income audiences while virtually every study lists wrestling’s primary appeal to lower income audiences, plus even if that wasn’t the case, wrestling still has a negative stigma it hasn’t overcome. So it would seem, even if the company gets strong clearances, which is not a lock, you are talking about years before it is established enough to start generating ad revenue.

And it fails to grasp that NBA TV has pushed into Basic, not Sports Tiers.

 

NHL Net has tried working in the same direction. They're already on Basic on Comcast, which is helped by Comcast having a 15% cut in the network. They've run into problems with other carriers, largely because the NFL draws flies as far as viewers. They're off AT&T now, probably because they're (i) pushing for Basic while (ii) not taking a big enough dip from that $0.35 household fee.

 

This kind of goes back to stuff mentioned earlier:

 

* WWE needs to be on Basic and get that household fee rather than a "subscriber" fee on a sports tier

* WWE really needs to go joint venture with Comcast

 

It's probably not a bad time. Comcast recently announced that NBC Sports is moving most of its various operations to Stamford. The ratings for Versus are really bad at the moment as it heads towards rebranding as "NBC Sports". Most of NBC's primetime lineup is drawing crap ratings, and they're extremely limited once the NFL's season runs its course. They lost out on the UFC and the World Cup. They would appear to have money laying around, and have several networks that aren't doing business and could be rebranded. G4 is the one usually mentioned, Sleuth just got rebranded as Cloo so it's not likely to be contributed to a JV, but Chiller is out there. There really is no reason Comcast couldn't merge the programing of Cloo and Chiller to leave the husk of Chiller for a JV.

 

I get that the WWE wants to "own" their networks. But they need to buy a clue:

 

 

A&E Networks: 42.5% Hearst, 42.5% Disney, 15% Comcast

ESPN: 80% Disney, 20% Hearst

NBA TV: "owned" by the NBA, leased out to Time Warner (Turner Sports)

Big 10 Network: 49% Big Ten, 51% Fox

 

A&E has been a long time successful network... actually a collection of networks, made even bigger when Disney & Hearst rolled the Lifetime networks into it.

 

ESPN is the most successful cable company ever.

 

The Big 10 Network is probably the most successful recently launch cable company. If someone tried to buy that puppy we're talking well into the billions of dollars.

 

In turn, NBA TV is probably worth around $100M a year to the NBA in terms of revenue on top of what they already get from TNT.

 

The point being: there are plenty of successful networks that are a JV on some level. Comcast brings important things to bear for the WWE, namely:

 

* existing network that could be contributed

* instant addition to Comcast households

* muscle to get onto other carriers

 

That muscle doesn't always work perfectly, though a lot of that is due to everyone being greedy. For the WWE... they simply need to get onto basic, and draw some ratings to stay on basic.

 

John