An all wrestling, 24/7/365...

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

....Radio station.

 

 

Rumor has it that Vince has long had dreams of running an all-wrestling TV station for some time. But TV stations are expensive. The equipment costs a lot of money, and getting into the cable markets? Fuhgeddaboutit. To give you an idea, Disney spent $5 Billion to News Corp and Saban Productions to buy the Fox Family Channel and make it ABC Family. They had to do some Fancy Stock Market Tricks to raise this cash, and the result? A channel that they planned to use to air repeats of ABC Network TV shows. Appearantly, Disney found that a suitable price compared to the costs of starting up a network by themselves.

 

So obviously, a TV station is way out of Vince's reach. But what about radio? He could run call-in shows, bring back the Tuesday Night Titans style format of talk show (although Excess kind of tried, it was really more recap show than TNT), run classic programming (combining the TV and PPV of WWF/E, WCW, and ECW makes a LOT of stuff), and maybe even get a deal to air Raw and SmackDown. He could run stuff like old TV shows or a couple hours of entrance music during the times when listener counts are low.

 

There'd be no logo blurring necessary and while backstage vignettes and visual gags obviously won't work, these can be edited out. A radio broadcast would certainly call for some quality announcers, so people know what's going on. Raw could especially use that badly.

 

It works for NASCAR ("they're turning left... Again.... Aw somebody crashed spectacularly!"), so why not for wrestling?

[Guest geniusMoment]

The WWE would not need to buy a channel. They would simply start their own, perhaps a pay channel at first offered on limited cable systems. As the channel became more popular more companies would offer it.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

Wrestling doesn't carry over to radio. You sort of have to see what they're doing. And with the WWE-style announce team, all you'd hear is "Austin should be showing up tonight"

[Guest Ram]

Do some 1997 Nitro tapes. THAT'D be great.

[Guest Eagan469]

They had "WWF Radio" in 1994. It was basically alternate commentary being done live for the major events. It was syndicated in most major markets.

[Guest Choken One]

I really doubt we'll see an All-Wrestling TV Network much less a Radio Show.

 

It would be completly redundant...who want's to Listen to A match if you can't see it...

 

The NASCAR radios are really done well...Alot of Fans can patch into their favorite driver's radio...

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Hmm.

 

Wrestling on the Radio?

 

LAME

[Guest El Satanico]

In this day and age there's no way people will listen to wrestling matches over the radio.

[Guest chirs3]

In this day and age there's no way people will listen to wrestling matches over the radio.

 

If they aired play-by-play of PPV's, I would most definitely listen.

 

But they wouldn't do that, most likely, so yea.

[Guest jester]

This is an excellent idea. Just like the WBF, XFL, the World Restaurant, and the new movie division that's going to make Test and HHH next year's Oscar contenders.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

In this day and age there's no way people will listen to wrestling matches over the radio.

Good opinion, but I also thought nobody would watch Byte This but appearantly they're still running that.

 

They could move that kind of programming (since, let's face it, the net cameras add almost nothing) to radio, just run old matches during the light hours. Hell, if they REALLY wanted, they could broadcast a few house shows. The biggest expense in production is video equipment, editing, etc. Radio eliminates that.

 

I mentioned the NASCAR thing only because they have a 24 hour NASCAR channel on one of the satelite services. If you don't believe me check it out yourself. NBA also has a deal going on now. Speaking of the two satelite companies, there's a win/win deal that gives the station national listening and the company attention. XM plans to have a million listeners by the end of this year. It's competitor Sirius plans 300,000.

 

Beh. Maybe I am stupid...

 

This is an excellent idea. Just like the WBF, XFL

 

But not THAT stupid.

[Guest Austin3164life]

The play-by-play people of the WWE are horrible right now, and I would not want to listen to Jim Hoss yelling "AUSTIN GOT SCREWED, SONOFA BITCH~!" or King screaming "HOT LESBIAN ACTION!" throughout an event. The sad thing is that King and JR are the WWE's best, and they are far from being at their best right now. Cole, Coachman, and any other dork would bore me, and many others, as well.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

The play-by-play people of the WWE are horrible right now, and I would not want to listen to Jim Hoss yelling "AUSTIN GOT SCREWED, SONOFA BITCH~!" or King screaming "HOT LESBIAN ACTION!" throughout an event.

 

A radio broadcast would certainly call for some quality announcers, so people know what's going on. Raw could especially use that badly.

[Guest razazteca]

the only way a wrestling radio station would work is if they use just loop all of the internet radio shows and add some special guest host. the people who pay for XM would get the inside scoop on whats going on in the business.

 

actual audio from wrestling matches would be boring, as it was not successful in the days when radio was king, you know when it was considered real.

[Guest KingOfOldSchool]

This is an excellent idea. Just like the WBF, XFL, the World Restaurant, and the new movie division that's going to make Test and HHH next year's Oscar contenders.

Don't forget SmackDown Records (which pretty much already failed).

 

Maybe for the call-in shows and such I could see this working, but as far as matches and events go, I can't see it translating well. Whether the broadcast is on tv or radio, the matches are still the focus of the channel.

 

The announcers would have to be very knowledgable, and at least in the case of someone like Michael Cole, would have to be led by the hand. And even if they were able to call the match with effeciency and knowledge, a lot of fans wouldn't have a clue of what to make of the move names and audio-only call of the match. I think the visual aspect is too much to part with.

 

And though it's definitely not happening within the next year or two, especially with the downturn in business, I think an actual cable channel is still going to become a reality. And though a huge reason is the home video market, Vince can't be going after footage of old promotions with only that reason in mind (he's been fighting for ECW's footage, and I've read that he's been looking to acqire other footage now).

[Guest Rob Edwards]

24/7? Vince can't seriously be considering this, How much demand can there be to hear JR give Bradshaw verbal blowjobs at 5 AM?

[Guest Choken One]

I certaintly agree...Why would you even want a Radio Channel anyways...Radio shows are dead... CWN Would be sold to Digital Packages and likely do better business than a Fucking radio channel...

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Tis cheaper, was my only arguement.

 

I dunno. I stay awake past 8PM and have some pretty stupid thoughts.

[Guest Rob Edwards]

It might not be a bad idea as a once a day net broadcast for say an hour covering the stuff that's on WWE.com but 24/7 is silly, just for the fact they'd have nothing to fill the time with, unless they locked Jim Cornette in a room with a mic, but then theres the human rights act

[Guest KingOfOldSchool]

I dunno. I think however much money you save with radio v. tv wouldn't be much. I'm sure equipment costs would be your only big gain.

 

Disney, in this instance, was buying everything, lock, stock and barrel, from an unaffiliated company; which is how they came to that apparenly high price. While the giant Viacom, provided they have good relations with the WWE if and when the time comes, would probably give Vince a leg up. And Vince probably could earn back a lot of his money by way of advertisers on the 24/7 tv channel, which would probably come out to more advertising revenue than you could earn with a radio station.

 

just for the fact they'd have nothing to fill the time with

 

Maybe not. But that's where the advertising comes in. You don't have enough stuff to fill out the entire day, you lend a nightly block to paid programming, like a lot of channels do now.

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

As for this logo blurring business that everyone seems to be all up in arms about, they wouldn't have to do that unless they wanted to because such a cable channel would most likely be US-Canada only.

[Guest JHawk]

The TV channel is feasible, particularly if WWE gets the ECW footage as expected.

 

Radio? Not a chance in hell. People barely listen to the radio for music unless they're in the car anymore

[Guest Choken One]

Exactly, and I really believe that The WCN will happen sometime down the future...

[bobobrazil1984 0]

That idea sucks. old TV shows on the radio?? that would sucketh mightily

[Guest wwF1587]

i believe it could happen.. i would love to see it as well... i probably wont get it here though.. i am just getting SD! again....