20+ million subs may stumble upon a WWE network doc and we all rave about those; if something like the 24/7 or 365 series gets more eyeballs on it you can be sure NBCU is going to use that data. How that changes booking, pushes, who gets to be promoted, only time will tell. It’s certain Vince never listened to anything about they could have learned from their core base.
BTW - this now makes not promoting Sasha on Disney+ make sense. Always the tealeaves.
I guess that’s possible - but I’m assuming the Network will be a section all to it’s own, and 20+ million people aren’t just stumbling into it to check out their content, anymore than non fans who have access to USA Network (90.4 million households) are tuning into Raw.
I know I’m probably coming to this feeling slightly pessimistic. I just feel like too many times over the last twenty years, I’ve heard about things that felt like "finally, this is it- they’ll start listening to their fans and serving their audience better’- only to be disappointed.
I can’t take a monster deal like this to show anything other than WWE feeling assured that they are on the right track with the status quo.
FYI on the “section all to it’s own” part - they have one section with continuous channels running 24/7, which I assume the main network one will start running through…as well as things sectioned out by genre, which is where their WWE content already lives - so I just assume you’ll be clicking into that as if you’d click into Premier League or their NFL content or watching Yellowstone repeats or something. So it’s a little bit of both, but they have a Featured area too that can push it out in front when they want to like any other OTT.
I know there’s people “all out” on WWE, but largely elsewhere, the problems people have with the company is Raw (which is obviously putting a large shadow on everything else). Smackdown has been pretty much all positive since Reigns has been back. NXT is losing to AEW, but it’s not like anyone has huge problems with it as an actual show. They’ve had very few PPVs that haven’t delivered this year. They put out tons of documentaries people are into and the content on the network is well-liked. They’re expanding their footprint across different countries. The ratings are down, but also lots of different ratings are down this year. I think they’re not as responsive as they should be in areas, but the idea that they’re just totally off-base with everything and the entirety of what they do needs to change isn’t really true and they wouldn’t be the last sports/entertainment/content company to be rewarded for not necessarily running on all cylinders.
As long as they continue get this fraeking amounts of money for the content they currently have - forget about it.
Peacock TV is the one streaming service whose embedded video player causes me problems on my computer.
And it is the video decoder. I went to the website of the software maker and their sample streaming has the same problem on my computer. Succinctly, the video freezes intermittently every couple of seconds. It’s why I don’t even bother to watch Peacock though it is “free”.
Regardless, there is little WWE has that I want to watch. NXT is already available on USA. I guess Takeovers are now going to be on Peacock?
I think streaming services are a bit different than TV channels as they are entirely on demand. If I sign up for one to watch a particular program I likely will check out what else it has to offer. Now it won’t be 100% of people who do that but it isn’t the same as TV which unless you DVR something it is appointment viewing. I’m sure though that if someone watching USA sees a commercial for a show that interests them they check it out. But at a much lower rate than they might on a streaming service.
Some more insight on this from Meltzer. On Observer Live yesterday, he said that ESPN will no longer have WWE stuff because of this.
Bingo - in my notes I wrote for the call I fell asleep before making to the POST guys last night this was something I had circled - what does this mean for their coverage by ESPN and other outlets who are not on Team Peacock
I think John and Wai brought up a great point last night… You have to think that once a month Fox is doing a go-home show promoting events on Peacock, is going to be a point of contention.
WWE using TV to promote shows on PPV or their own Network was one thing. Now they are using any and all TV to promote a very specific entertainment conglomerate.
Fox actually benefits from Disney’s growth through their transaction a few years back. It’s something like a Fox share is 1/4 a Disney share. This is interesting and as I continue to form thoughts on all this from a business case perspective, it continues to weight the leverage for the actual TV rights towards Comcast.