WWE TV Oversaturation

[Jimmy Redman]

WWE now produces eight hours of first-run TV a week: Raw, Smackdown, Main Event, NXT and Superstars. I think everyone agrees that it is too much and causes a lot of problems for the product like overexposure of stars, constant rematches and guys doing far too many jobs. But in the current era and the setup of WWE's business being based on TV rights fees (looming Network aside), this structure is inevitable.

 

My question is, from a creative and booking standpoint, what can be done about it?

 

If you're Vince, short of cancelling half of your TV shows, how do you address the problems that too much TV causes? How do you fill the hours in a way that maximises interest and protects the wrestlers?

 

Try to move back to a more squash/non star vs star format?

Fill time with more non-match segments?

Try to use stars more sparingly on a weekly basis?

Expand the roster to avoid the same match-ups?

Wrestler off-seasons?

[Loss]

I think the answer is in creating more stars, and I don't mean Punk-level or Bryan-level stars. They need an ensemble of Cena-level stars. I realize that's easier said than done. A seasonal rotation wouldn't be the worst idea at this point either. 52 weeks of first run content is a pretty high standard.

[Loss]

Maybe they should consider writing 8 or 10 episode story arcs, like some of the bigger hit shows on network TV are doing these days.

[jdw]

Chris hits some of the data points, but these things are worth going over yet again as the have when they've been brought up in the past:

 

My question is, from a creative and booking standpoint, what can be done about it?

 

If you're Vince, short of cancelling half of your TV shows, how do you address the problems that too much TV causes? How do you fill the hours in a way that maximises interest and protects the wrestlers?

 

Try to move back to a more squash/non star vs star format?

Try to use stars more sparingly on a weekly basis?

Wrestler off-seasons?

Here's the big problem with those three:

 

TV brings in a massive amount of the WWE's annual revenue. Rights fees where 28.8% of the company's revenue last year, with nothing else close. What drives the Rights Fees are (i) viewers, (ii) hours of content, and (iii) the year round aspect. USA Network's other series run 12-16 episode seasons, 1 hour a piece for draws. Raw is 52 weeks a year, now 3 hours:

 

16 * 1 = 16 hours for Hit Drama

52 * 3 = 156 hours for Hit Raw

 

You need to sustain viewers to keep those numbers up.

 

Current wrestling fans aren't going to stick around for 3 hours of Squash matches.

 

Okay, okay... I know what someone is going to say:

 

"We're not talking about 100% squash matches."

 

I get that. But 50%? 33%? 12.5%?

 

But the WWE's revenue model has a massive component in it (the largest component, in fact) driven by attracting and keeping eyeballs on TV. Cena vs SD Jones followed by CM Punk vs Brady Boone followed by The Miz vs Barry Horowitz, all going 2-3 minutes... that's not enticing to fans who've grown up for 15+ years of not having old school squash matches on their primary TV shows (Raw, Nitro, Thunder, SmackDown).

 

It's just the reality of Raw/SmackDown level TV at this point. You always have to think of what gets in viewers, and what keeps them.

[rzombie1988]

I watched every WWE show for around a year straight and I can tell you that it was really hard work. You basically can't do anything else and you really can't watch anything else.

 

I don't think over saturation is a problem to anyone but the hardcore internet fans. WWE pretty much lays out that it is Raw or bust and the ratings seem to indicate most fans feel that way too.

[mookeighana]

WWE now produces eight hours of first-run TV a week: Raw, Smackdown, Main Event, NXT and Superstars. I think everyone agrees that it is too much and causes a lot of problems for the product like overexposure of stars, constant rematches and guys doing far too many jobs. But in the current era and the setup of WWE's business being based on TV rights fees (looming Network aside), this structure is inevitable.

NXT is only on Hulu so I don't know if it can really be counted and Superstars is only on Hulu/shown internationally, so I don't know if that can be counted either. For years, Heat was still internationally aired but it really was just filler material so they could service their international obligations.

 

Though this really isn't that new of a situation.

See: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/wwftv

 

Right now you've got Raw (3 hours), Smackdown (2 hours), Main Event (1 hour) on broadcast television domestically which is 6 hours.

 

In the past we had regularly had 5 hours with Raw, Smackdown, ECW (June 2006-Sept 2010) or 6 hours for about 1.5 years when WGN America started airing Superstars (starting in April 2009, it lasted until April 2011 but ECW/NXT went off broadcast in Sept 2010).

 

We had 6+ hours back in 1999 when there was Raw (2 hours), Smackdown (2 hours), Heat (1 hour) and the syndicated shows (Shotgun Saturday Night, Jakked/Metal) plus Los Super Astros.

We had 6 hours back in 2002 when there was Raw (2 hours), Smackdown (2 hours), Heat (1 hour) plus Velocity (1 hour) along with Confidential.

 

Hell, even back in the 80s and 90s, there was 6 hours of wrestling between USA and Syndicated programming.

 

What is the situation now:

 

a) 3 hours is too long for a single show. The modern ratings patterns demonstrate diminishing interest in that final Raw hour. That underscores the fact that they've successfully retrained their viewers to tune in at 8 PM (huge bump for post-PPV weeks), but they're getting worn out before you even hit the overrun.

 

Having no exclusivity between Smackdown and Raw hurts the ability to keep the product feeling fresh. Between 2003-2006 a very small percentage of talent appeared on both Raw & Smackdown in the same week. If you don't have megastar power like you did when Smackdown began, then your next best option is to build up reasons to watch each show and not just make it feel like Raw-lite.

 

Personally, when the massive increase in TV Rights fees looming and the de-emphasis of PPVs ahead (with the online network you're looking less at building month-to-month attractions), I think there's an opportunity to return to building two brands. Essentially, that's why NXT is so different - it's a completely different set of storylines and performers. I like that and I think that's your best option to creating an environment where the real #2 is not TNA (because they're not even close) but rather the alternative WWE brand. Plus, if they can create something that's meaningful, they can tour with it and that's ultimately going to be their goal in the future - maximize live event revenue along with reaping in TV Rights fees.

[Matt D]

One thing about NXT is that you could easily toss oh, say ten of those guys and four of the women on the main roster tomorrow and it'd be fine. Even when the in ring isn't quite up to snuff, the characters are. Another brand split would be fine across the card except for on the very top.

[Migs]

Could they do a brand split that wasn't as clear cut?

 

What I mean is, instead of simply rotating who happens to be on Superstars or Main Event every week (or even Smackdown), why not build certain feuds that are really developed on these shows? A bit like WCW Saturday Night in that 98-99 period, except the hierarchy wouldn't be as strict (i.e. you'd still have the payoff to that feud on PPV, not just on TV).

 

The difficulty I see is that such a setup would be a lot easier in a prior generation where the performers were more used to writing for themselves and not dependent on creative. I'm thinking about that Seven idea that Raven always talks about pitching when he was in WWE (roughly speaking, the idea would be that he'd beat a guy each week and the way he'd do it would relate to one of the seven deadly sins). It's an idea you could let play out on Main Event (and I think his initial pitch was to do it on Heat), keeping people in the loop with a short update segment on Raw. But how many guys are out there now who can create for themselves? And if there's not enough of these guys, don't you just end up relying on the already burnt out writers?

[Jesse Ewiak]

The thing is, we basically have squash matches now. How many 3 minute matches has 3MB, Santino, Sin Cara, or whoever had in the past few months? No, they aren't pure jobbers, but the JTTS is alive and well in 2013. And honestly, I think most WWE TV outside of RAW could be 'pushed' guys beating 'unpushed' guys in matches. They may not be 3 minute squashes, but is there really any question outside of the markiest mark about the result of a 7-minute Cesaro-Sin Cara match on Smackdown?

[rzombie1988]

The thing is, we basically have squash matches now. How many 3 minute matches has 3MB, Santino, Sin Cara, or whoever had in the past few months? No, they aren't pure jobbers, but the JTTS is alive and well in 2013. And honestly, I think most WWE TV outside of RAW could be 'pushed' guys beating 'unpushed' guys in matches. They may not be 3 minute squashes, but is there really any question outside of the markiest mark about the result of a 7-minute Cesaro-Sin Cara match on Smackdown?

Definitely true. 3MB, Santino, Zack Ryder and a bunch of others are JTTS and the WWE 2000's versions of jobbers. The problem is, they are jobbing out guys they have money and time invested in, instead of no names.

[cm funk]

I don't think the hottest product with the best booking and the best talent in the world could sustain the amount of tv they have. They can't even keep a live RAW crowd hot for 3 hours. The only crowds that stay actively engaged are the ones that are rebelling against the product.

 

The Attitude era burned out in 2 years or so, and that was with way less tv, less PPVs, and everything having a "must see" feel to it.

 

3 hour RAWs are a chore for me to watch and I've been skipping a lot of them over the last few months and checking out segments after the fact. RAW used to be appointment tv for me, but watching the WWE product for 3 hours, where they struggle to fill the time and bore their crowds to sleep, is tough. I started watching RAW last night and it was so bad and boring that I quit about halfway. The crowd actively booing the Bellas and not giving a shit about Eve was hilarious, but not in a good way. Apparently I need to check out the main event segment as it sounds like the crowd was quite vocal in their distaste for the current booking and treatment of Daniel Bryan. I haven't sat down to watch SD on a Friday night in years. Pretty much since they threw in the towel on the brand split there's no reason to watch SD, as it's just RAW lite now. Sure, you get some good matches on the show, but there's nothing must see about it at all, and it was already at a disadvantage not being live. I never watch Main Event, just check out random matches online if they sound good or get pimped as good. And I consider myself a bigger WWE fan than a lot of people on this board.

 

I think there's a lot to like about WWE production and presentation, its top notch. They have a great talent roster right now and you routinely see good-great matches on tv. But there are so many things wrong with their writing and booking and the general inertia of the company right now. With all the hours of tv they do, even if they fixed the problems in the creative, made longterm goals and stuck with them, and pushed the people the crowd wants to see.....there's like no way they can sustain all these hours of first run tv. I have my own ideas about things they could do to improve the actual product and slow down their booking and make things more logical, but I don't know if it would even matter. Their tv product and audience just is what it is at this point.

[mookeighana]

The Attitude era burned out in 2 years or so, and that was with way less tv, less PPVs, and everything having a "must see" feel to it.

But is it really "way" less TV and PPVs?

 

Attitude Era TV

2-hour RAWs

2-hour Smackdowns (started August 1999)

1-hour Sunday Night Heat

1-hour of syndicated TV (Shotgun Saturday Night and/or Metal/Jakked)

Recap Show: Livewire/Superstars/Excess

 

Basically, 4 hours of A-level TV, 2 hours of B/C level TV.

Now we have 3 hours of A-level TV, 2 hours of B level TV (Smackdown), 1 hour of B/C level TV (Main Event).

 

This year we had 13 PPVs, last year had 12 PPVs.

In 1999 and 2000 and 2001 each had 12 PPVs each year. (And in that era, both ECW and WCW were running PPVs shows. There was 77 PPVs from those companies between Jan 99 and Dec 01.)

 

I completely agree that Raw being 3 hours is too long and Smackdown is a completely miss-able show but the era of having 16 PPVs a year was the mid-2000s, not now.

[jdw]

There also were those shows over on TBS and TNT, with a certain % of the viewers crossing over.

 

John

[Jimmy Redman]

Even if the hours of TV are roughly the same compared to however many years ago, I think at the moment it just feels like too much and too repetitive because there's no brand split anymore. Smackdown, up until they completely abandoned the split, wasn't always the most important show, but it was a different show with a largely different crew of guys and emphasis on different feuds and the World Title instead.

 

Now there's no split, the exact same crew can work the exact same matches on Raw, Main Event, Smackdown, Superstars. In fact this trend began about a year or so ago with the addition of Main Event and ending the split rosters, when you have things like a match happening three times in the space of a week or so, because they did it on Smackdown, then Raw, then Main Event... There was a point I think last year when I actually tried to research the prevalence of rematches within a given week or month of TV, the results were pretty damning, and I think its worse now than it was then.

 

Even if you look at the shows pre-brand split, even if you have the same crew working Raw and SD, Heat and all the other auxiliary shows were different, filled largely with the jobber crews. Now, there's a lot more blurring of the lines between the A, B and C shows. You won't see top guys working ME or Superstars, but pretty much anyone below that level can work with anyone else below that level on those two shows, or Smackdown, or on Raw for that matter. And they do, hence the endless rematches.

 

And on the point of comparison to other periods of time, "having a brand split" was definitely one way in which WWE worked to overcome having too many hours. And it worked, in my opinion, to that end. I think we're seeing that now since it was abandoned.

[mookeighana]

Even if the hours of TV are roughly the same compared to however many years ago, I think at the moment it just feels like too much and too repetitive because there's no brand split anymore. Smackdown, up until they completely abandoned the split, wasn't always the most important show, but it was a different show with a largely different crew of guys and emphasis on different feuds and the World Title instead.

 

Now there's no split, the exact same crew can work the exact same matches on Raw, Main Event, Smackdown, Superstars. In fact this trend began about a year or so ago with the addition of Main Event and ending the split rosters, when you have things like a match happening three times in the space of a week or so, because they did it on Smackdown, then Raw, then Main Event... There was a point I think last year when I actually tried to research the prevalence of rematches within a given week or month of TV, the results were pretty damning, and I think its worse now than it was then.

 

Even if you look at the shows pre-brand split, even if you have the same crew working Raw and SD, Heat and all the other auxiliary shows were different, filled largely with the jobber crews. Now, there's a lot more blurring of the lines between the A, B and C shows. You won't see top guys working ME or Superstars, but pretty much anyone below that level can work with anyone else below that level on those two shows, or Smackdown, or on Raw for that matter. And they do, hence the endless rematches.

 

And on the point of comparison to other periods of time, "having a brand split" was definitely one way in which WWE worked to overcome having too many hours. And it worked, in my opinion, to that end. I think we're seeing that now since it was abandoned.

If you're really curious, I did stats on how often the same people appeared on Raw & Smackdown during the same 7 day periods: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt..._raw_concurrent

 

[Wahoos Leg]

That graph is awesome, and makes me miss the halcyon days of the true brand split.

[JerryvonKramer]

One of these:

 

 

Helps to make everyone else on the roster look good. Everyone. He legitimates the JTTS.

 

Why won't modern fans watch jobber matches? Or let me put it another way, put jobber matches on RAW, and what choice have they got (assuming they they want to watch wrestling)?

[bradhindsight]

Heath Slater is the Frank Williams of 2013. And he does his job with gusto too.

[JerryvonKramer]

That's his mistake. Williams is shaking his head at the thought of that much effort.

[rzombie1988]

Heath Slater is the Frank Williams of 2013. And he does his job with gusto too.

It's true. I usually complain about having certain salaried roster members become jobbers but for Slater, it's a good role. I don't want to see him be a face and I don't want to see him pushed as serious wrestler. A great heel jobber like Slater is worth every penny and more.

[Sidebottom]

One of these:

 

 

Helps to make everyone else on the roster look good. Everyone. He legitimates the JTTS.

 

Why won't modern fans watch jobber matches? Or let me put it another way, put jobber matches on RAW, and what choice have they got (assuming they they want to watch wrestling)?

Sad point of interest, Frank died many years ago of cancer

[FedEx227]

Why won't modern fans watch jobber matches? Or let me put it another way, put jobber matches on RAW, and what choice have they got (assuming they they want to watch wrestling)?

I've always wondered this as well. The common narrative is "OH WELL NOBODY WILL WATCH THAT", but do we really know that? They haven't done it in 15+ years, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be tried again. Hell, it might be seen a positive because at least it's SOMETHING different from what has essentially been a stagnant show format for the past 15-20 years.

[Steven]

Do people ignore the jobber matches when they appear or something? They were used as recently as last year getting Ryback over.

[Coffey]

I personally always liked jobber matches. As a fan, it was like the only time you ever got to see a damn finish. On the PPV, you might get a screwjob. On TV, if it's star against star, if you have any sort of clean finish it'll be like a roll-up or something. Sans like a Goldberg push or something. I remember marking out on Nitro just because Wrath was killing people with The Meltdown for a couple of months.

 

You put Tom Johnson from Tallahassee in the ring with DDP though, you're getting a Diamond Cutter.

 

I've always been a big proponent of a wrestlers finish being a big part of his character/gimmick. If a dude has a shitty finish, it's harder for me to get into his matches. I used to love that old WWF Superstars show when I was a kid because you got to see the signature moves from everyone. The Rude Awakening, the DDT, etc. Otherwise, it felt like we never saw 'em. Then on a PPV they would tease their finish & the other guy could fight out of it. Without ever seeing the damn moves, that tease doesn't work anymore.

 

Plus, as an added bonus, if the fans get several Tom Johnson from Tallahassee squashes on a show, suddenly a mid-card match between The Miz & Kofi Kingston might matter more. That would be like an old B-show main event. On RAW it's a channel-changer & an eye-roller.

[Jimmy Redman]

Yes, and I think a factor in a lot of newer guys' finishers not being over like they used to is because they never seem to hit them, or beat anyone with them. The showcase aspect you get squashing a jobber is lost.

 

So you get worst case scenarios like Dolph Ziggler, a guy who has a bunch of signature moves that he NEVER hits the first time, only ever seems to hit them as desperation counters, and that are always kicked out of, before he loses. In kayfabe tha guy is completely ineffective.

 

I'm using extreme examples, but then look at Ryback, who had the squash matches for months to establish his movement, kill people with it, and win. So much so that within six months of debuting the character he drew an actual buyrate, because people actually believed he could end Punk's record setting reign while they were building him up for The Rock.

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting to go back to an 80s format with lots of squashes overnight. But you can EASILY do like one squash per show. And when Ryback moves onto competitive matches, you bring up Big E and give him a few months squashing guys, then when he moves on, you bring up The Ascension and have some tag squashes, and so on.