WWE Network... It's Here

[Petey]

How was CoD better about constant updates? For the stuff they showed, they would generally upload a new episode of ECW, Raw or Nitro every other week. Sure, each week there was new content, but most of it was stuff that's already on The Network.

[goodhelmet]

At this point Classics on Demand was far better about constant updates. I guess this is really just a split between people who want archive footage and people really only have it to watch PPVs for cheap and maybe some of the documentaries.

 

I think this is it also.

[Sidebottom]

This is from the Observer:

 

"The reason there is so much WWE content on YouTube, which some think has hurt network subscriptions and will hurt renewals, is it is a strategic decision by WWE. Rob Bernstein, the WWE Vice President of Digital and Print in March told the Digital Sports Fan Engagement Conference that they were not going after blocking archived YouTube videos of products that they own because they believe it’s better to leave them there and get fans hooked on the product. He said that the belief is that long-term, it is more beneficial and that fans who get exposed to the product that way will spend more money. There are differing opinions about that. There are some things that they do go after, particularly if it’s stuff they don’t want up."

 

The "old content" rollouts of the network make even less sense now.

 

I wonder if Vince has already mentally given up on this project.

Its the old piracy debate 101. People will always be split on this matter. I see both sides of the argument, I'd be selective about what I take down, I.e fresh ppv, docs etc. An old ECW TNN taping may tempt somebody to check out more in far better quality.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'm surprised that this is their take on all this. I remember a period where they went crazy taking down stuff on YouTube. But it makes a little sense considering there is WWE stuff still being put on Netflix Instant too.

[rovert]

Meltzer:

Court Bauer seems to know:

Let's panic

[Zoo Enthusiast]

THE BIZ.

[Mad Dog]

How was CoD better about constant updates? For the stuff they showed, they would generally upload a new episode of ECW, Raw or Nitro every other week. Sure, each week there was new content, but most of it was stuff that's already on The Network.

 

I think it was. I remember running home from work for the new World Championship Wrestling every other week.

[goc]

I think it would be short sighted for them to look at the number of views for the older stuff and decide that it's not worth their time to upload more. I realize that it's easy for them to upload WCCW & ECW because those have already been edited, but that also means they have already been seen by a significant number of the hardcore audience that also was subscribing to CoD.

 

I thought having all the old PPVs would be cool, and it is, but without the TV in between it's just not that big of a hook for me. I would like to see Mid-South, SMW, Florida, AWA, St. Louis, Georgia, WCW Saturday Night, the list goes on. I'm not asking for everything at once obviously, but just give me ONE of those in a regularly updated schedule to show me that you actually care about using the insane amount of footage that's in the vault.

[hammerva]

They were showing Nitro up to about mid 1998 and then just stopped for some reason. The only things that they would show regularly was WWF Primetime, NWA Saturday show, RAW, and ECW. Every now they would show a weekly AWA, Stampede, and World Class in order but it was mostly once every 3 weeks or so.

 

While the amount of updates have become really frustrating, I still believe that the Network is miles better than Classics. The stuff shown will always be there and there are far fewer edits to the product than Classics.

[Petey]

I hope Metlz is alluding to the big stories being MMA-based. It'd be funny to watch a bunch of people get all mad.

[goodhelmet]

I would be shocked if it wasn't MMA based.

 

Anyway, on the Part 2 of Fixing WWE podcast which has to be rerecorded, I predicted that the gain in the network numbers would be about 25 - 30,000 additional buys. I would be shocked if they were even at 750,000 when the numbers are released this week.

[Matt D]

I'm thinking it's going to be pretty brutal too. There's just no reason to think that they would have gone up.

[CaptCabana]

If the goal is to reach 1,000,000 by the end of the year, I would damn sure be hiring people to do NOTHING but upload their little asses off, every piece of footage you can possibly think. You have to reach the niche of the niche at this point. Then hire additional people to work on the technical aspects...match searches, chapter stops, framerates. Little things matter.

 

It's so simple a 4 year old could figure it out. If you are banking the success of your multi-million empire on this one venture...AND YOU ARE...why would you not take every step necessary to ensure its success?

[Petey]

I think the consensus is that right now, the archived footage is drawing the least amount of eyeballs and that the most watched stuff on The Network is related to current programming. While I think that a better diversity of old stuff would draw in some new subscribers, I doubt that's what the WWE brain trust believes.

[thebrainfollower]

Because Vince.

[Mad Dog]

I think you need to overwhelm people with content. They might not care for the old stuff but hit them with "wow, look at all the stuff on here!" It should feel like Netflix where you couldn't possibly ever watch everything offered.

[Steenalized]

I think the consensus is that right now, the archived footage is drawing the least amount of eyeballs and that the most watched stuff on The Network is related to current programming. While I think that a better diversity of old stuff would draw in some new subscribers, I doubt that's what the WWE brain trust believes.

I think those stats are bit misleading. Except for SNME in the last few weeks, the original content has been pushed way, way harder. Things like Legends House have weekly airings designed to draw viewers. When you put up 30 Clash of the Champions at once, they're gonna get a scatter shot of viewers. Some of us start at one, some people might watch the ones they are interested in or remember, others might just go with the Monday Night War era. Same thing with the old ECW, WCCW, etc.

[JNLister]

I don't necessarily see that "what gets most views now" = "what we need more of." It's not a free TV channel, it's a subscription service. Current viewing figures only tell you what people who are already subscribing want to watch, not the people who are thinking of subscribing, which is who you need to target.

 

Plus, from a purely anecdotal point, World Class is the thing I most wanted to watch from the selection available on day 1 (once I saw it was starting with the build-up to Flair-Von Erich 12/25/82). It's also the one thing I've watched absolutely nothing of because I've been waiting in vain for them to show in a complete chronological run. Based on WWE's viewing figures, I have no interest in old territorial footage, but that's absolutely not the case. They'd find out if they did more surveys of their user base, which shouldn't exactly be hard when you have their email addresses.

[Steenalized]

On a related note to what JNLister just said, there's the issue of a lot of their polls being sent to current fans/subscribers. If you want to increase the network, look for lapsed fans and fans that never took to the WWE, which territorial and older content is more likely to pull in. Someone growing up watching Georgia might be interested in getting the network if they can relive that even if they have zero interest in $10 PPVs.

[JNLister]

They're now producing commercials for the fact that you can watch SummerSlam 98 on the live stream this Sunday at 5pm. They really don't get it, do they?

[anarchistxx]

The whole thing has been a total fuck up. They should have either gone all out or not at all. Rolling content out slowly isn't going to draw people. The whole point of an 'On Demand' service is that people can watch whatever they want, whenever they want to. Sure, they put out all the PPVs, but without the weekly television that is pointless to a lot of people.

 

They aren't even pleasing the hardcores - those type of people have seen all the PPVs, probably a couple of times. They want rare content from the territories, or old television from the 80s, or classic matches in upgraded quality.

 

I always thought the subscriber numbers were going to be way lower than projected. Couldn't believe it at the time when people were predicting Wrestlemania would do less than 100k buys and that traditional pay per view buys would be down to a few thousand a show because all fans would be on the network.

[Migs]

Also, for a service that's competing with Youtube, essentially, their search function is embarrassing. Why not make playlists to make it easier for someone to go on a Steve Austin or Randy Savage binge? That's how people young enough to be likely subscribers consume content, not in a 3 hour PPV blocks.

[Loss]

They definitely should have pre-made "best of" playlists available the same way iTunes does for both big names and popular genres.

[goodhelmet]

I listened to Gabe Sapolsky with Alvarez today and he predicts the network numbers will go down. He predicts the next number will be 500,000 or 600,000 and will be down to 200-300,000 by Christmas time.

 

I don't think the growth will be good but I don't think they decrease subscriptions to this degree. Is he nuts?

[jushin muta liger]

I listened to Gabe Sapolsky with Alvarez today and he predicts the network numbers will go down. He predicts the next number will be 500,000 or 600,000 and will be down to 200-300,000 by Christmas time.

 

I don't think the growth will be good but I don't think they decrease subscriptions to this degree. Is he nuts?

I don't think it will decrease that much but I am personally definitely on the fence with the Network in terms of renewing my subscription. I know they have an uphill battle post production wise with getting more content on this channel especially with uploading the Attitude era and Nitros with music rights and other editing things but they need more interesting programming. Hell, I'll take the Blackman's bounty hunter show. I just need something interesting.