Timbo Slice Posted March 9, 2014 Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 Specifics aren't really well known, but the assumption is that a deal is in place tentatively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Farmer Posted March 9, 2014 Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 Plus remember Viacom was very public with their last dealings with Vince. They were not happy working with him, and they publicly pulled out of negotiations which forced WWE to go back to USA and get a weaker deal. Add to that the rumors of comcast possibly dropping WWE on PPV after Wrestlemania and how un happy they were with WWE's network being dropped in their lap they may not be an option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timbo Slice Posted March 9, 2014 Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 I'd say considering Viacom's standings in the cable game, they might need to back up that money truck or else they're gonna fall just like Time Warner did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted March 9, 2014 Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 WWE's self imposed deadline for picking a deal was this past week, so presumably the next month or two is finalizing a deal that they already picked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrisZ Posted March 9, 2014 Report Share Posted March 9, 2014 How hilarious would it be if they went with Time Warner and wrestling ended up back on TBS & TNT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazer Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 How hilarious would it be if they went with Time Warner and wrestling ended up back on TBS & TNT Â LOL, that would be incredible on so many different layers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 How hilarious would it be if they went with Time Warner and wrestling ended up back on TBS & TNT I'm trying to figure out if it would be good or bad for me personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Would it be preempted by Braves games again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrisZ Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Braves are no longer on the old Turner family networks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 What the hell do they show then? I think last thing I watched on TNT was Leverage and I couldn't tell you the last thing I watched on TBS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 TBS went to general MLB coverage and aside from that just shows comedies. TNT still has the NBA, and both networks are in on March Madness. Come playoff time that would doubtless be a conflict. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradhindsight Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 What the hell do they show then? I think last thing I watched on TNT was Leverage and I couldn't tell you the last thing I watched on TBS. Â Big Bang Theory re-runs and really crappy new comedies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 AMC is pretty funny if Vince is looking for $200M+ a year. Look up the Revenue and Cost of Revenue for the entire company. Dropping that load on Vince would be a major change in how they do business.  On the Viacom side, 8+ years is a lifetime in television. ESPN has a piece of the NASCAR package from 1981-2000. They got aced out when NBC and Fox bought the major parts of the package starting in 2001. NASCAR and ESPN were kind of dickish with each other when the package moved. Did it matter long term? Not really: NBC decided it was too rich for them and bowed out in the next package, and ESPN slid back in to have a piece from 2007-2014. Did NBC bowing out matter in the long term? Not really: they bought back into the next package the runs from 2015-2024.  "It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business." -Michael Corleone  The tricky thing about Viacom is that it's a pretty narrow group of channels:  You have the MTV group, which I don't think the WWE wants a part of now. Then you have the Nick group, which also isn't a great fit. Dittos the BET group. Which leaves the Entertainment side: Comedy Central, TV Land, Spike and Epix. Epix doesn't count. TV Land is in a lot of households, but it's a jobber channel often booted to the SD range. I'm pretty sure that I don't have it in HD on TWC, and that appears to be the case with others.  Could one see SmackDown on Comedy Central?  So is Spike going to double down on wrestling by carrying both Raw and SmackDown? I don't think it's bad for the WWE to have both on one channel, and it probably isn't bad for overall viewership for that network as it would be 5 hours of a pretty sizeable bump in viewers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Another thing to consider... isn't the pressure for RAW to be 3 hours on the USA side? If so, I can see RAW going back to 2 hours on another network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 AMC is pretty funny if Vince is looking for $200M+ a year. Look up the Revenue and Cost of Revenue for the entire company. Dropping that load on Vince would be a major change in how they do business. Â Breaking Bad is done and Mad Men has one more season left. When Mad Men finishes, does AMC have anything going for it besides Walking Dead? Yeah, it's a long shot, but stranger things have happened. The TV world is becoming overpopulated with dramas about troubled leading male characters. Maybe AMC doesn't want to bother with another "Cold Winter Sun" and thinks people who like zombies will also like some rasslin'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I do wonder what type of pressure AMC would put on WWE creatively. Wrestling is pretty low brow compared to the other stuff on their network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 They have Better Call Saul coming in November. That's more of a no-brainer for them since it's following in the steps of the great success that was BB. It could be very appealing to AMC at this point to have 4-5 hours of high-rated programming, whether or not it originated with them. Whether WWE thinks it works for them is another matter though. Like I said, they have barely any live programming let alone something that would pre-empt WWE on Monday and Friday nights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookeighana Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I wrote up a piece a few days ago (3/5/14) where I came to the conclusion that based on the facts on the ground, I figured they're going to end up sticking with NBCU and not getting the $200M: http://whatculture.com/wwe/wwes-current-15-year-stock-high-tied-domestic-tv-future.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cox Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I do wonder what type of pressure AMC would put on WWE creatively. Wrestling is pretty low brow compared to the other stuff on their network. I haven't actually watched either show, but Comic Book Men and Small Town Security don't strike me as being particularly high brow. They seem to be getting away from the higher quality dramas that they used when they first started out, and are going for more lowbrow fare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Another international deal penned: Â http://www.tele5.de/raw.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014  AMC is pretty funny if Vince is looking for $200M+ a year. Look up the Revenue and Cost of Revenue for the entire company. Dropping that load on Vince would be a major change in how they do business.  Breaking Bad is done and Mad Men has one more season left. When Mad Men finishes, does AMC have anything going for it besides Walking Dead? Yeah, it's a long shot, but stranger things have happened. The TV world is becoming overpopulated with dramas about troubled leading male characters. Maybe AMC doesn't want to bother with another "Cold Winter Sun" and thinks people who like zombies will also like some rasslin'.   They have a number of things in the "scripted" pipeline, with three debuting this year:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_%28TV_channel%29#Future_programming  They have quite a few others in the Developmental stage. Walking Dead of course is a monster. Hell On Wheels is back for a 4th season coming up later this year, but it's largely spinning its wheels in terms of viewers: very good for AMC, but at the level where things get expensive the longer shows go on. It would be surprising if it gets a 5th season if it's ratings hold up to that level, but beyond that... who knows. You want to hit a certain number of shows for syndication value, but that never has looked to be high on AMC's list when looking at shows getting axed in the past.  My only thought is that if Vince really thinks he's getting $200M a year, that's a ton of jack for AMC. The Dolan's have a nice little cash cow in AMC, but it's also sitting on a decent amount of debt that they just added another $600M to recently for an international acquisition... there's a pretty decent sized debt service going on.  Not saying AMC wouldn't buy it as an anchor for say Monday and Friday (or some other night of the week for SD) primetime. But $200M is a lot for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I do wonder what type of pressure AMC would put on WWE creatively. Wrestling is pretty low brow compared to the other stuff on their network. Â Their biggest hit, and arguably the biggest hit in the history of cable (not including sports) is a Zombie series. If AMC is seriously chasing the WWE, they know exactly what they're getting (as does everyone) and don't care about creative changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 I love your ability to speak for every single person involved in this whole story, John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Seriously... do you really think that AMC gives a hoot about WWE Creative given (i) it's the WWE so everyone knows what they're getting, and (ii) ZOMBIES~! Â Just because we're not sitting at the table doesn't mean we have to be dumb. It's akin to people inside the wrestling business saying that folks on this board can't really judge the WWE's business and creative decisions because we're Outsiders rather than Insiders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 USA cared about content. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that another network would. They may not. I just don't think it should be dismissed immediately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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