rovert Posted March 10, 2010 Report Share Posted March 10, 2010 Reading certion forums TNA fans seem have become Neilson rating system reformists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted March 10, 2010 Report Share Posted March 10, 2010 I assume you're talking about the Observer boards where we have dumb threads like "What is the WWE spin on Raw dropping to 3.38 during WM hype?" and "Why is everyone here so anti TNA?". At least it leads to an interesting response from Dave. Quote I get no glee out of TNA failing. I have friends who work there and if you know about their financial situation now, this is not looking good at all. They spent millions expecting a whole lot more return than they got. I'm also not going to pretend TNA is doing great because if TNA was really doing great it would be the best thing for business. They had Hogan's first match on U.S. TV in 3+ years and Flair's in 2 years and did a 1.0 rating with it. It's really sad for both of them. They can make the crowd go crazy, but guess what, I saw them at the Nassau Coliseum tear down the house in 2000 but the company was still on the way to going out of business. You can't be successful in an entertainment business if you don't know how to make new stars. They've spent 8 years thinking recreating WCW is the key to success. That ship has sailed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kronos Posted March 10, 2010 Report Share Posted March 10, 2010 The irony is that the numbers don't even really mean as much as they used to. What I mean is not that they don't show the official business. I mean that in today's streaming world, you could be watching both shows at once and yet neither of them get credit. So there's absolutely no way to tell who's really watching. That said, what I saw [via streaming] didn't make me want to buy the PPV, while RAW [also via streaming] made me even more exciting about buying Mania, so. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 10, 2010 Report Share Posted March 10, 2010 The problem is that TNA and Spike project a certain level of performance to justify the show. If it doesn't meet it, doesn't matter how many people stream it. No doubt streaming might be useful in getting people to buy the PPV. But Spike doesn't care about that. And without Spike, TNA will have massive problems. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 codegreen said: The irony is that the numbers don't even really mean as much as they used to. What I mean is not that they don't show the official business. I mean that in today's streaming world, you could be watching both shows at once and yet neither of them get credit. So there's absolutely no way to tell who's really watching.It's the opposite actually. It counts as a viewer if there's like 5-6 minutes in a given quarter hour, so there's some double-counting. IIRC this was demonstrated best when WCW closed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 11, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Ditch said: codegreen said: The irony is that the numbers don't even really mean as much as they used to. What I mean is not that they don't show the official business. I mean that in today's streaming world, you could be watching both shows at once and yet neither of them get credit. So there's absolutely no way to tell who's really watching.It's the opposite actually. It counts as a viewer if there's like 5-6 minutes in a given quarter hour, so there's some double-counting. IIRC this was demonstrated best when WCW closed. Actually if someone's watching a stream, neither show gets credit. That's the point he was making. Networks crave the 18-49 male demo, and a lot of them don't watch TV on an actual TV anymore. The more popular watching TV on other media gets, the more shows that appeal to younger viewers will get screwed over by Neilsen ratings that really haven't changed their application in 50 years other than taking time shifted viewing into account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Neilsen and the networks will adapt to try to account for people who "legally" stream: content off the network websites and/or other authorized distributors of the content. They're not wholy unaware of the issue. Where they'll never catch up are illegal distribution of the content. Which they likely know as well. So over time we'll see more content be made available on the web *at the same time* as it's available live on TV. No different from how authorized downloads of music are part of Billboard's charts now. The only way they can deal with the illegal is to make the content available legally and figure out ways to monetize it. One suspects in the long run that TV will be better at it than the music business as they're an ad driven business. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 Ah, I missed the word 'stream'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 People thinking that the reason TNA isn't doing better business is because of their booking or because the Hogan/Flair ship has sailed are really, really too far inside the wrestling bubble. TNA could be delivering great angles with the right people and a big marketing push from Spike behind them, and it wouldn't make much difference. The only wrestling fans left are ones who watch out of habit. While it's been nine years since WCW folded, it's been about 12 since the Monday Night Wars actually mattered. Lots of fans have left and come along during that time. Most of us grew up with more than one option for wrestling. I'm not sure new fans even think about wrestling in those terms. WWE is wrestling, period. WWE has even restructured where event names mean more than grudge matches, and gimmick matches mean more than blowoffs to feuds, so star power and booking are pretty much irrelevant in 2010. TNA will stay in business if Panda is patient and willing to lose a lot of money and if they can secure some strong TV rights income. Increased PPV and house show business won't hurt, obviously, but that's not really how wrestling works anymore. If TNA did a kid-friendly product marketed to children, they *might* do okay, but the twenty and thirty-something fan watches UFC, if anything, so why would they switch back to wrestling? Doing blood and more adult-themed storylines in this era is dumb because there's not really an audience for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 I should also mention that the name of the company is a stupid double entendre that probably hurts them as much as anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wahoos Leg Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 To me the one true "alternative" promotion out there that actually serves up something that could be a viable second banana company is CHIKARA. If I ever won Powerball, I might give Quack a few mil just to see what would happen. Besides him retiring to the Bahamas, of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Quote TNA could be delivering great angles with the right people and a big marketing push from Spike behind them, and it wouldn't make much difference. I really don't disagree with this, but if TNA had kept costs down, small improvements in PPV and house show revenue generated by better booking could have made the difference between making a small loss and making a small profit, or at least cut the bleeding to a minimum. Quote WWE has even restructured where event names mean more than grudge matches, and gimmick matches mean more than blowoffs to feuds, so star power and booking are pretty much irrelevant in 2010. You act like this was a cunning plan Loss, rather than a kneejerk reaction to stop the bleeding in WWE's PPV business caused by their own creative incompetence, nepotism and overexposure. I really think in the end, they're just going to dilute the appeal of those gimmick matches. Quote TNA will stay in business if Panda is patient and willing to lose a lot of money and if they can secure some strong TV rights income. Loss, if TNA were patient they would have stayed on Thursday nights, saving all the money they've blown on going live every other week, advertising the move to Mondays, bringing in Hogan, Bischoff, Flair, Hardy and RVD, etc. They're pissing away millions of dollars into the wind on a foolhardy head to head war with WWE and are probably on course to lose more money this year than the last four years combined. TNA's problem was that they weren't patient enough and thought with their balls instead of their brains. Where is this "strong TV rights income" going to come from when moving to Mondays is costing them significant viewers. Overseas TV deals are really just chump change in the current big picture. Quote Increased PPV and house show business won't hurt, obviously, but that's not really how wrestling works anymore. This talking point is a little silly, given that part of the reason WWE has maintained its profitability in recent years is through its healthy house show business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 There's no question TNA wouldn't be doing 4's in the ratings, but that said I have little doubt that enough people have given them a chance and thought it sucked to where if the product was actively good and kept said people they could pull in 2's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 I agree that WWE didn't have a master plan to stop doing traditional grudge matches and instead focus more on novelty matches, but that is the reality of wrestling right now. Also, I'm not implying that Panda is patient or that strong TV rights income is on the way. I'm just saying that much like WCW before the Nitro era, if Panda is willing to continue losing money on TNA, then TNA won't go anywhere. TNA house show business isn't going to make or break them even if it is strong because they don't run enough shows to pull a profit. Maybe if TNA switched to a more traditional approach of emphasizing house shows, even pulling occasional title changes on non-televised matches, it would make a difference, but house shows will never be emphasized in a company where Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff have any influence. In fact, mid-90s WCW's de-emphasizing of house shows ended up bleeding over to the WWF and gave us the situation we have now where it's more of a "come to see the stars" thing than anything else. That in turn has bled over to the entire business model. The two people that actually have drawing potential in that capacity (and it would die off after their first appearance in each market, if not sooner) are Hogan and Flair, and they're way too old to go on the road full time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 12, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Loss said: I should also mention that the name of the company is a stupid double entendre that probably hurts them as much as anything. This is being slept on, IMO. Wrestling fans/people in the "bubble" are so used to lame comedy that they don't even realize this. You can't imagine the weird looks I got when I mentioned at work that I'm going to a TNA houseshow on Sunday. Half of them gave me a "why are you telling me you're going to a titty bar" look before my wrestling fan co worker explained what TNA is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 the WWE's decision to shift to gimmick PPVs last year was actually quite smart. Other than Breaking Point it was a success (at least a moderate one). I hate to agree with Bryan Alvarez but on the free show last night he said that WWE at least tries to make some changes when things aren't working (the new PPV model, NXT) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Loss said: I'm just saying that much like WCW before the Nitro era, if Panda is willing to continue losing money on TNA, then TNA won't go anywhere. Even if Panda eventually wanted out, I think TNA will exist in some form provided Spike TV still wants wrestling programming on their station. I think the problem is that for Panda to keep throwing money at TNA they need some light at the end of the tunnel, a golden carrot to chase. For years that golden carrot was getting on Monday nights. There's really no golden carrots left for Panda to chase if their Monday night experiment fails. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Posted March 12, 2010 Report Share Posted March 12, 2010 Wasn't TNA profitable for a decent period of time, IIRC before the recession? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomk Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 Quote I'm just saying that much like WCW before the Nitro era, if Panda is willing to continue losing money on TNA, then TNA won't go anywhere. Ted Turner ran a large entertainment company. From the Bischoff thread here: Quote I tend to think we vastly underrate the true "profit" to Time Warner-Turner in the 1996-2000 time frame, simply because all that's floated to Meltzer are the "books" of WCW. We can talk about contracts being moved over to Turner Entertainmaint. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the impact of Nitro and Thunder on those channels revenue streams... even if one wants to roll out the "wrestling's ad rates are lower than other stuff". I know that. But they are lower than the 5th re-run of America's Funniest Home Videos doing test patern ratings. Quote I was skimming through a WON from a couple of years ago, I think around the time when Bischoff's biography came out and Meltzer mentioned that Bischoff got TNT and TBS to actually pay WCW rights fees for WCW programming, which no other head had done. I think Dave mentioned that WCW would've turned a profit for several pre-Bischoff regimes if WCW had just been paid rights fees by Turner for its programming. Quote Yeah, he said they would have every year of their existence until 1999. The question isn't if WCW was loosing money on their books but if Turner entertainment was making a profit off of owning WCW. Panda Energy is not an entertainment company, doesn't own a satelite television station, they construct power plants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NitroFan Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 Ditch said: Wasn't TNA profitable for a decent period of time, IIRC before the recession? I thought they'd been profitable for a couple of years now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 Given that TNA, unlike WWE, is not a public company that discloses its financial information, I've always been a bit skeptical about the stories that they were profitable. I'm sure some months in the past they took in more than they spent, but I'm skeptical that they've been profitable for any 12 month period. Even if they have been profitable for the last couple of years, they've made chump change compared to WWE. It won't take long for that chump change to be frittered away with the increased advertisement, production and talent costs incurred by going to war with WWE. WCW was far more profitable than TNA could ever dream of and they blew it all in a couple of years of extreme incompetence and recklessness. TNA's now on course to follow suit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 There's no way TNA is anywhere near as unprofitable as 2000-2001 WCW. Way smaller roster, far fewer wrestlers making 500k+. Stevie Ray was making like 750k. Dozens upon dozens of jobbers who weren't necessary at all, making 6 figures. THEN they had all the geezers making millions, and all on their own dime. TNA at least has Spike defraying some of the cost for the Stings of the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Morris Posted March 13, 2010 Report Share Posted March 13, 2010 If TNA is ever going to be a profitable company, the company needs to establish its own identity rather than just making the product look like "WWE for an older audience." They've had elements that could have enabled TNA to distinguish itself, such as the X Division and a women's division that's promoted as having better athletes who aren't all just eye candy, but such elements don't really stand out any more and look just like everything else. The X Division title, in particular, is booked as just another title to pursue rather than the original purpose of being a title contested among wrestlers who were considered "more innovative" regarding in-ring ability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.L.L. Posted March 15, 2010 Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 Bob Morris said: If TNA is ever going to be a profitable company, the company needs to establish its own identity rather than just making the product look like "WWE for an older audience." At this point, it sounds like they've graduated to "deathbed WCW for an insane audience", but yeah. This, of course, is something that we've all been saying for a very long time now, but it's wrestling, and nobody ever seems to learn their lessons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 15, 2010 Report Share Posted March 15, 2010 Two different things: * it seems unlikely that TNA has ever been profitable for a year It's just hard to imagine how that's possible given the talent they have. We know Sting has been paid. Angle didn't jump for free. Nash didn't work for free. Cactus didn't work for free. Their payroll if of course lower than the WWE. But what's their revenue stream? The house show business looks to be far from thriving. And PPV can't be a great deal once you take out the cut for the cable companies and the middle men. Look at how far the WWE's buys have dropped in the US, where the international buys have made up some of that decline. Does anyone thing TNA does that level of international business relatively speaking? * I'm not sure that WCW was ever a major drain on Turner/Time Warner One of the quotes Tom has above if from me where I talk about how the "WCW Bucket" didn't remotely come close to representing the revenue that WCW Content brought into Turner/Time Warner. While "WCW" lost money in the last few years, that doesn't mean that the *rest* of Turner/Time Warner didn't take in more than that amount even after you factor in that they "paid" to WCW for content. That's not to say WCW was healthy that last year or 20 months. The Turner/Time Warner model works best when it's something like the Braves in the 90s: Turner/Time Warner *vastly* under pays for the value of the TV Contract, but the Braves have enough other revenue sources that they're not terribly bleeding money. The Braves worked within their corporate budget, while the rest of Time Warner made money hand over fist on that under priced content. WCW at it's peak was similar. As others point out: TNA doesn't add anything to the Parent's other revenue streams. Panda doesn't market entertainment content. Turner/Time Warner did. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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