CCharger
The Great One  
Posts 3492
Registered 7-21-2010 Member Is Offline Mood: Covfefe
|
| posted on 6-9-2017 at 05:35 PM |
|
|
Here's an article from Forbes that blames the increasing age of WWE fans on cord-cutting and WWE's reliance on "nostalgia" rather than
building new superstars.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakeoestriecher/2017/06/09/wwe-fans-are-getting-older-but-why/2/#664f92a85d7f
Here's another thought of mine: what if younger fans are watching wrestling - just not WWE. Maybe millenials are more into the indie/Japan scene
rather than the WWE. We tend be more WWE-centric around here, but it's possible that young people like their wrestling, but hate the shit the
WWE is putting out.
[Edited on 6-9-2017 by CCharger]
"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."
"The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."
--- Stephen Miller, Trump senior White House advisor, Feb. 12, 2017
|
|
|
First 9
The Rowdy One
Posts 2374
Registered 1-22-2013 Member Is Offline Mood: Doing the Emma Dance
|
| posted on 6-9-2017 at 08:05 PM |
|
|
Cord-cutting as an excuse is bogus. WWE's ratings have gone down by 20%. A fifth of their audience. No other form of entertainment in television
has been that dramatically hit by cord cutters.
The fact that being kid-friendly still makes you a top merch seller points out that kids are watching but probably aren't watching the full
length shows every single week like the hardcore audience. Maybe they just stick to Youtube, flipping the channel to just watch their guy/gal and then
tuning out or they just watch every other week. If those 40 years olds have been the same audience since the Attitude Era, then that means they were
the majority of viewers during the Prime Cena years and yet Cena made his name and boat loads of money as a super hero to kids.
|
|
|
GodEatGod
Man of a Thousand Holds 
Posts 1254
Registered 1-14-2004 Location Monroe, LA Member Is Offline Mood: Weird
|
| posted on 6-10-2017 at 02:53 AM |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by First 9
If those 40 years olds have been the same audience since the Attitude Era, then that means they were the majority of viewers during the Prime Cena
years and yet Cena made his name and boat loads of money as a super hero to kids.
You know what a lot of 40 year olds have? Kids.
"It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don't like something, it is empirically not good. I don't like
Chinese food, but I don't write articles trying to prove it doesn't exist." - Tina Fey
|
|
|
williamssl
Steers and Queers
Posts 7652
Registered 1-11-2004 Location Hippieville Member Is Offline Mood: Fuck USC
|
| posted on 6-10-2017 at 03:36 AM |
|
|
That summarizes my household perfectly.
My then-tyke, despite his dad's objections, chose John Cena as his favorite and lots of merchandise was bought.
Don't Mess With Texas
|
|
|
janerd75
The Great One 
Posts 3766
Registered 1-28-2013 Member Is Offline Mood: Lantern kick'n
|
| posted on 6-10-2017 at 05:33 AM |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by williamssl
That summarizes my household perfectly.
My then-tyke, despite his dad's objections, chose John Cena as his favorite and lots of merchandise was bought.
"Well, life's a bitch n' then you marry one. Alls you know now is you're goin' into the bar tonight to get just fuckin'
interplanetary." - Wayne (Letterkenny)
|
|
|
Bluntman
And I am AWESOME
Posts 110
Registered 1-3-2011 Location Salt Lake City by way of Florida Member Is Offline Mood: Swagger Kush
|
| posted on 6-10-2017 at 07:19 AM |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by First 9
Cord-cutting as an excuse is bogus. WWE's ratings have gone down by 20%. A fifth of their audience. No other form of entertainment in television
has been that dramatically hit by cord cutters.
ESPN and WWE are not quite equal, and thus this is not perfectly analogous, but the entire TV viewing audience has shrunk.
"In 2013, ESPN had over 99 million subscribers. Today, it has just under 89 million. Over the last three years the network has lost a couple hundred
thousand subscribers each month; a 621,000 loss is eyebrow-raising but on-trend. And even if Nielsen had halved ESPN�s subscriber loss to 310,000 in
the updated report, it wouldn�t change the fact that it has lost 10 million subscribers in three years."
Source: http://deadspin.com/espn-is-hemorrhaging-subscribers-and-pretending-it-does-1788618362
|
|
|
Chris Is Good517
Best There Is Was or Ever Will Be 
Posts 12535
Registered 1-10-2002 Location Little Rock, AR Member Is Offline Mood:
|
| posted on 6-10-2017 at 04:05 PM |
|
|
I don't have a problem with WWE keeping their product family friendly. Good writing can be capable of appealing to adults without pandering
exclusively to kids but also still remain in the confines of what could be described as appropriate for all ages. I don't think there's
too much disputing that. I know we all have the Attitude Era up on this pedestal but honestly a lot of the content is kind of terrible, both in
terms of actual creativity and in terms of "does this make me cringe when I watch it almost 20 years later?". I think what we liked about the
Attitude Era, that WWE does not have going on for it today, is
- Every character, including the lower-midcarders/JTTS guys, have some kind of angle or program ongoing at all times.
- Every character has a character. Meat and Beaver Cleavage might have been ridiculous in retrospect and even at the time, but I can give you a
better idea of who they were and what their mission statement was than I could for Curtis Axel or Erick Rowan.
So if WWE is going to adopt elements of the Attitude Era I'd prefer it be that rather than having somebody's gimmick "I HAVE A PENIS AND
I'MMA USE IT" a la Val Venis or a regression into overt sexual objectification of the women. Which isn't to say there isn't room to
go a little more edgy, but you can still do so in a way that doesn't alienate your younger audience.
Speaking of that younger audience, my kids are 9, 7, and 3. They all regularly watch with me. All three are huge marks for John Cena. Not one of them
gives a single shit about Roman Reigns and he seems to be one of their bathroom break guys. My kids obviously aren't the objective metric for
measuring what Reigns has to offer as the so-called franchise guy, and I realize he moves a ton of merch so clearly somebody is into him, but
he definitely doesn't have the inherent appeal to the kids that Cena did, and I wonder how that's going to play out in the future.
Monday Night Flaw, a podcast about professional wrestling starring OO's own
Figure Foreskin as Andy the Smarmy Host and Chris Is Good517 as Cousin Balki.
|
|
|
Flash
The Great One
Posts 3364
Registered 4-22-2005 Location Ontario, Canada Member Is Offline Mood:
|
| posted on 6-10-2017 at 05:47 PM |
|
|
I think one of the WWE's major problems is that we all know where they are going, or at least think we do which can be just as bad. All roads
shouldn't point to Roman as we basically mark time watching part-timer 2 move Brock destroy people we could get behind en route to jobbing out
to a guy that a sizeable amount of their audience is hostile towards (something the WWE has never answered is why is they are happy with Roman getting
any reaction why do they play with the audio and crowd shots so much).
It's not even necessary that this is actually where the WWE is heading; just that enough of us believe that for a third time out the WWE is
going to push this on us with a best case scenario that after the fact we'll either be pleasantly surprised (Rollins) or say that wasn't
was bad as we thought it would be (the next year).
Roman isn't the problem; he's just the face of the problem.
I'm not advocating swerves for the sake of swerves, but when your audience thinks and expects that they know where your product is heading it
makes everything in between a little less must see... or worse, something you know you can outright skip. You don't watch to be entertained, you
watch to be proven right... or at best surprised that you weren't right. That's not a good starting point for your audience when they go
in thinking the best case scenario is that your product's direction and outcomes aren't going to be as bad as you thought they might be.
Imagine a program where you WANT to see what comes next because you genuinely don't know... Say Joe beats Brock... what's the worst that
can happen... people talk, your part timer is a little more interesting and must see because you don't know who will beat him, you've got
a new star maybe... doesn't have to be Joe; they just need to capture that anything can happen vibe again that was the real success of the
attitude era.
|
|
|
First 9
The Rowdy One
Posts 2374
Registered 1-22-2013 Member Is Offline Mood: Doing the Emma Dance
|
| posted on 6-11-2017 at 03:22 PM |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Bluntman
ESPN and WWE are not quite equal, and thus this is not perfectly analogous, but the entire TV viewing audience has shrunk.
"In 2013, ESPN had over 99 million subscribers. Today, it has just under 89 million. Over the last three years the network has lost a couple hundred
thousand subscribers each month; a 621,000 loss is eyebrow-raising but on-trend. And even if Nielsen had halved ESPN�s subscriber loss to 310,000 in
the updated report, it wouldn�t change the fact that it has lost 10 million subscribers in three years."
Source: http://deadspin.com/espn-is-hemorrhaging-subscribers-and-pretending-it-does-1788618362
From 99 to 89 is a 10% drop. WWE's ratings are taking a much bigger hit than that.
|
|
|
