New WWE UK 5 Year deal confirmed

[Vanhalen 0]

Any idea what these six extra monthly specials could be?

 

 

World Wresting Entertainment® And BSKYB Sign Unprecedented Five-Year Television Deal

 

New Agreement Provides Extensive WWE® Programming in the UK

 

STAMFORD, Conn., and LONDON, UK, October 4, 2004 – World Wrestling (NYSE:WWE) has expanded its 18-year relationship with British Sky Broadcasting in the UK, signing a new five-year agreement for WWE's weekly programming, and pay-per-view specials, which takes effect in January 2005.

 

Under the new agreement, BSKYB - which provides WWE programming to more than 10 million households in the UK and Republic of Ireland - will carry all nine first run hours of WWE's seven weekly programs. WWE RAW®, WWE SmackDown!™, WWE Heat™, WWE Velocity™, WWE Bottom Line™, and WWE After Burn™ on Sky Sports Channel, and WWE Experience™ on Sky One. Six monthly Specials will also be shown on Sky Sports

BSKYB will show eight events annually on Sky Office including perennial favorites WrestleMania®, Royal Rumble®, Summerslam® and Survivor Series®.

 

Shane McMahon, Executive Vice President, WWE Global Media, hailed the new agreement as the start of an expanded presence in the UK. "We value the UK market, and see it as a natural stepping off point for furthering expansion of the WWE brand around the world," said McMahon. "We have had a long and beneficial partnership with BSKYB. WWE is excited about our expanding relationship and the business opportunities it offers."

 

Andrew Whitaker, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, WWE International Television Distribution,, added, "The new agreement takes WWE and BSKYB into a third decade of business together. There is no greater testimony to the mutually beneficial nature of this special relationship. We look forward to further expanding our programming and presence in the UK working with BSKYB."

 

Vic Wakeling, Managing Director of Sport at BSKYB, said: "WWE Wrestling has been with us since our network began and a generation of fans have enjoyed their events and weekly shows on Sky. Now we can offer our viewers WWE for the next five years - and we'll have more shows for them, too."

[Garth 0]

I would hazzard a guess at the monthly specials maybe being something like the fanatic series.

[Guest Dazed]

Nah... six free PPVs + 8 not-free PPVs = 14 shows, which is about what we're seeing at the moment.

 

Six monthly Specials will also be shown on Sky Sports

BSKYB will show eight events annually on Sky Office including perennial favorites WrestleMania®, Royal Rumble®, Summerslam® and Survivor Series®.

 

As for this... fuck you, WWE, you just lost a customer.

[Repo Man jr 0]

I hope your right about the 6 free ppv's dude! Atleast thats something.

[k thx 0]

Nah... six free PPVs + 8 not-free PPVs = 14 shows, which is about what we're seeing at the moment.

 

Six monthly Specials will also be shown on Sky Sports

BSKYB will show eight events annually on Sky Office including perennial favorites WrestleMania®, Royal Rumble®, Summerslam® and Survivor Series®.

 

As for this... fuck you, WWE, you just lost a customer.

Fairs fair dude, we can still get them easy enough. Plus Box Office = a fuck of a lot more chances to se a replay than Sky Sports.

 

I'm just happy to get 6 free, if that is the case. I thought Sentana had them all signed up.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Setanta has the other 6 shows contracted to them, so I'd hazard a guess at the 6 'specials' being something totally different. Anyway, looks like Silver Vision will be getting my business from now on.

 

...what about 'WWE' Classics? Is that still contracted?

[Guest Dazed]

Hey loyal British fans! The service you've been getting for free for years and years? Yeah, we've decided to start charging you for exactly the same thing! Even though the product isn't as good as it's been, we think you should be happy to pay!

 

Nope, sorry... fuck them.

 

EDIT: bittorrent

Edited October 4, 2004 by nikjohns

[Exslade ZX 0]

Hey loyal British fans! The service you've been getting for free for years and years? Yeah, we've decided to start charging you for exactly the same thing! Even though the product isn't as good as it's been, we think you should be happy to pay!

 

Nope, sorry... fuck them.

 

EDIT: bittorrent

What's the complaining about? You all don't really have to pay like 35 dollars for ALL of them, and 50 for Wrestlemania.

 

I've always looked at getting them 'free' as a priveledge. Late night or not or even if it has to come with some special package...it's more then what I'm getting. (in the US) But maybe that's just because I'm not in that situation.

[landy1987 0]

I have no problem paying for any shows (then I can just buy what I want) but I will be extremly unhappy if they cancel the WWE Classics show (currently WCW Worldwide episodes from July 92) as sometimes that is the highlight of my week when watching wrestling and also as we wont be getting WWE 24/7

[Guest MikeSC]

Exactly. The American audience is a much bigger audience and has been HOSED for years. I've found it annoying that Britain got them for free...period.

-=Mike

[Guest reek]

I actually have no problem with them charging for PPVs, I've been anticipating it for while and I'm not a big enough stooge that I'd never buy events or wait for DVDs. The problem I have is with them switching all TV (outside of Experience) to the premium Sports channels, in US terms, it's like moving RAW, SmackDown!, Velocity and Heat to a HBO like service and then expecting that a couple of b-show PPVs will sweeten the deal. And it doesn't, I'd rather have RAW and SD! on Sky One and have all events as PPVs, I really would.

[Vanhalen 0]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Setanta has the other 6 shows contracted to them, so I'd hazard a guess at the 6 'specials' being something totally different. Anyway, looks like Silver Vision will be getting my business from now on.

 

...what about 'WWE' Classics? Is that still contracted?

Werent Setanta buying them on a show by show basis, not an actual contract?

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

The UK never got the PPV's for free. They not only had to have a subscription to SKY, they also had to pay for the package that carried the wrestling. They still payed for the PPV's.

[Exslade ZX 0]

The UK never got the PPV's for free. They not only had to have a subscription to SKY, they also had to pay for the package that carried the wrestling. They still payed for the PPV's.

But I'm sure it wasn't 380$ a year was it?

[deancoles 0]

The UK never got the PPV's for free. They not only had to have a subscription to SKY, they also had to pay for the package that carried the wrestling. They still payed for the PPV's.

But I'm sure it wasn't 380$ a year was it?

It costs us way more than that.

 

My cable bill costs £40(71 dollars) a month with all the sports channels and they've just raised prices.

 

Edit: Over here Most people only have cable so they can watch Football(Soccer)

Edited October 6, 2004 by deancoles411

[clean rob 0]

Quick calculations: Sky value pack plus Sky Sports channels (Raw, SD! + 8 PPV's/year) = £31/month

extra PPV's = £15 each.

 

I figure that as £432 a year, or approx. $769.

 

So 'free' is a bit of a misnomer really.

[Guest Heppyhack]

Hey loyal British fans! The service you've been getting for free for years and years? Yeah, we've decided to start charging you for exactly the same thing! Even though the product isn't as good as it's been, we think you should be happy to pay!

 

Nope, sorry... fuck them.

 

EDIT: bittorrent

It seems a very brave move given The Wrestling Channel's started up to start forcing payment for all the WWE events. I could understand (and just about justify it) if they were putting the Big Four on Sky Box Office, but all of them?

[Guest Heppyhack]

Exactly. The American audience is a much bigger audience and has been HOSED for years. I've found it annoying that Britain got them for free...period.

-=Mike

But they weren't free. You still had to subscribe to Sky Sports to see anything other than the throwaway weekend shows and the brutally edited (seriously, a four year old with blunt scissors could do a better job) version of Smackdown on a Saturday morning. So you were looking at roughly £40 a month before you got NEAR the PPVs. So it's not like British fans weren't forking out - they were just doing it in a lump sum for all the events rather than individual PPVs. And as for Insurrexion and Rebellion...

[Guest Dazed]

If someone could tell me how many people watch Raw in the US (i.e. what does a 3.6 rating translate to), then I'll crunch some numbers and explain why it's a bad idea.

[Guest Heppyhack]

If someone could tell me how many people watch Raw in the US (i.e. what does a 3.6 rating translate to), then I'll crunch some numbers and explain why it's a bad idea.

It means 3.6% of the available TV audience at that time was watching Raw. Assuming there's 99M tv watching households in the US (which is how Nielsen calculates it, iirc) , it means 3.56m people were watching Raw at that time - although in reality it could be more or less, because of the timeslot, number of people per household, etc. They work in a similar methodology to BARB in the UK, using diaries to calculate a sample audience, with Nielsen's figures based on 13,000 people in 5,000 households.

 

Hope that helps.

[Guest Dazed]

Thanks dude.

 

Okay, we'll call it 3 million, because it's a round number and I suck at adding up.

 

Average Raw viewing in the UK is 180,000, based on Meltzer's numbers posted the other day. (down from a peak of over 300,000, so they've killed off almost half the market here already.)

 

PPV buyrates in the US are coming out in the region of 250,000 buys these days, which means that one in twelve people who watch Raw will buy a PPV.

 

Translating that to the UK, that gives just 15,000 buys. However there are other factors:

 

Firstly, Sky Box Office is (obviously) only available to Sky customers, and not people using NTL etc, even though they have access to Sky Sports.

 

Second, a lot of the audience is children, who aren't going to have a credit card or the means to pay for the event in the first place - mummy and daddy won't want to pay for them to watch wrestling every month.

 

Third, it finishes at 4am on Monday, when people have to be getting up for work, school etc. I'd resent paying for something and being knackered throughout it. Particularly when it's something I've been used to getting for free.

 

There's also competition now in the form of the Wrestling Channel, who show their Supercard on a sunday - do I watch 4 hours of Curry Man for free, or No Mercy for £15?

 

And finally, we just don't have as much of a PPV culture over here. I can't think of anything other than occasional sporting events (boxing + football), and movies that are on specific PPV channels, and in all cases there's an alternative. Boxing is shown free the week after, football has highlights and movies are shown free eventually. With this, you either pay or you don't see it at all. No chance.

 

But, being generous and assuming that WWE are going to charge £15 for 8 PPVs that 15,000 people purchase, that leads them to:

 

£1,800,000, or $3,200,000

 

Hardly seems worth pissing off an entire market over.

[Guest Heppyhack]

But, being generous and assuming that WWE are going to charge £15 for 8 PPVs that 15,000 people purchase, that leads them to:

 

£1,800,000, or $3,200,000

 

Hardly seems worth pissing off an entire market over.

Raw's audience drop may be in part to people getting used to the changed timeslot. It may go completely spacky over the next fortnight when the UK Raw and Smackdowns, and the Taboo Tuesday Raw, have their days shifted too. But it does say a lot that it's down by almost half.

 

Don't forget too that they dropped the UK only PPVs because they were getting too expensive to justify, so the buyrate for them must have been dire.

 

Dunno how much Supercard Sunday draws off the WWE audience - its only Velocity it's really competing with. But I did think it notable that they moved Raw to the same time as FWA TV - which, apart from TNA, is pretty much TWC's biggest draw.

 

I seem to recall Powerslam suggesting UK buy rates for the Sky Box Office showing of Royal Rumble two years ago was around 20K purchases. It may well have dropped off since then though.

 

The irony of all this, though, is Shane banging on about how the UK is an important market for them, opening up into Europe etc. And then they stiff the British audience (which they are. £40 for Sky Sports + £15 ppv charge = £55 = $97.92 per month just to watch WWE from next year.).

[Guest Dazed]

Raw's audience drop may be in part to people getting used to the changed timeslot. It may go completely spacky over the next fortnight when the UK Raw and Smackdowns, and the Taboo Tuesday Raw, have their days shifted too. But it does say a lot that it's down by almost half.

 

Meltzer's exact wording is:

 

Raw in the U.K., which would be the first rating for the new Thursday night time slot, did 160,000 viewers. The show had been ranging from 180,000 to 210,000 on its traditional Friday slot, in the heyday, the show usually topped 300,000, and so while house shows continue to sell out in the U.K., the overall interest level has dropped significantly there as well.

 

So you're half right; going to Thursday has dropped the ratings, but they were already only getting about 180,000 anyway.

 

Don't forget too that they dropped the UK only PPVs because they were getting too expensive to justify, so the buyrate for them must have been dire.

 

I don't have figures, but given their deserved "glorified house show" reputation, I wouldn't be surprised. Until you mentioned it, I'd totally forgotten they've stopped running them.

 

Dunno how much Supercard Sunday draws off the WWE audience - its only Velocity it's really competing with. But I did think it notable that they moved Raw to the same time as FWA TV - which, apart from TNA, is pretty much TWC's biggest draw.

 

I doubt they see TWC as anything of a threat, which is typical WWE thinking, but having two big wrestling shows on at the same time is going to draw off the same audience to some degree. Although "WWE fans" and "wrestling fans" are different, there's still considerable crossover.

 

I seem to recall Powerslam suggesting UK buy rates for the Sky Box Office showing of Royal Rumble two years ago was around 20K purchases. It may well have dropped off since then though.

 

As a one-off, I wouldn't be surprised, but when being asked to buy consistently, then there's definitely going to be a drop off. If I knew it was only WM XXI that would be PPV, then I'd definitely order. But knowing there'll be another 7 to buy this year alone, I would think twice.

 

The irony of all this, though, is Shane banging on about how the UK is an important market for them, opening up into Europe etc. And then they stiff the British audience (which they are. £40 for Sky Sports + £15 ppv charge = £55 = $97.92 per month just to watch WWE from next year.).

 

Britain is an important market because we're always a hot crowd when they come over and guarantee sell outs (although that's not true for the SD! shows this time around, for some reason.) They are going to try and bleed us dry, basically, instead of bringing in more fans, they'll take as much as possible from those that are left.

[Guest INXS]

The Smaackdow nshows last time around in March were all sold out - though they did leave many fans disapointed with no Angle, Taker or Lesnar (who had just left but not many fans knew this).

 

As for the hour long specials they wil almost certainly be from the fanatics series.

 

I would have quite liked to have seen the BBC or ITV pick up Raw or Smackdown - I guess all the programming came in one deal. I actually think that WWE on the BBC in a two hour slot on a Sat night would attract a pretty big audience.

[Guest Heppyhack]

I would have quite liked to have seen the BBC or ITV pick up Raw or Smackdown - I guess all the programming came in one deal. I actually think that WWE on the BBC in a two hour slot on a Sat night would attract a pretty big audience.

It's a nice idea, but I can't ever see BBC or ITV picking up wrestling again, and Four won't touch it with a bargepole after the last time. Five could have been an option - and were reportedly interested in getting the C4 package when it expired at the end of 2001.

 

What would have been best would have been if TWC could have done some kind of deal with WWE to show even the weakest of the weekend shows and shill the Sky stuff - but with them airing TNA I couldn't ever see it happening.

 

Interesting to note from that PR puff that all the shows are going to be on Sky Sports barring that Experience thing - does that mean the end of Bottom Line, Afterburn and Smackdown on a Saturday and Sunday morning, I wonder?

[Guest Heppyhack]

The irony of all this, though, is Shane banging on about how the UK is an important market for them, opening up into Europe etc. And then they stiff the British audience (which they are. £40 for Sky Sports + £15 ppv charge = £55 = $97.92 per month just to watch WWE from next year.).

 

Going to Thursday has dropped the ratings, but they were already only getting about 180,000 anyway.

 

Unfortunately, its still a significant audience on Sky Sports compared to virtually everything except football, which gives them leverage. If it keeps dropping though, I could see Sky get a bit concerned about it.

 

I doubt they see TWC as anything of a threat, which is typical WWE thinking, but having two big wrestling shows on at the same time is going to draw off the same audience to some degree.  Although "WWE fans" and "wrestling fans" are different, there's still considerable crossover.

 

Indeed, although its disappointing that WWE didn't at least try to do some kind of deal with TWC. Admittedly TWC isn't exactly cash rich at the moment, but even one of the c-list shows on there, plugging the Smackdown and Raw broadcasts, would have been a good fit and made commercial sense for both parties.

 

As a one-off, I wouldn't be surprised, but when being asked to buy consistently, then there's definitely going to be a drop off.  If I knew it was only WM XXI that would be PPV, then I'd definitely order.  But knowing there'll be another 7 to buy this year alone, I would think twice.

 

And that's going to be their biggest problems. A colleague of mine is a casual fan and taped the free PPVs to watch the next day, but draws the line at buying PPVs when the quality of them is as bad as it is. He won't buy any of the PPVs when the transition takes place, and I can understand that. It's also a big ask financially - they may get people going for the Big Four and that's it, which would put a huge dent in take-up for, say, Backlash. Unless the cards are decent, well promoted and stocked with good matches, that sort of viewer will just give up.

 

Britain is an important market because we're always a hot crowd when they come over and guarantee sell outs (although that's not true for the SD! shows this time around, for some reason.)  They are going to try and bleed us dry, basically, instead of bringing in more fans, they'll take as much as possible from those that are left.

 

It'd be interesting to know what Setanta's take on all this is, especially if they're picking up any of the slack from the old C4 deal.

 

As for bleeding the market - big mistake. British audiences, as Nik said before, don't have a tradition of PPV viewing (as the Formula One debacle on Sky a couple of years back showed). So if folk just go "screw it, I'm not buying this", they'll seriously struggle. And most folk, faced with a £55 minimum shell-out for a month, will say that.

[Guest Heppyhack]

Going to Thursday has dropped the ratings, but they were already only getting about 180,000 anyway.

 

Unfortunately, its still a significant audience on Sky Sports compared to virtually everything except football, which gives them leverage. If it keeps dropping though, I could see Sky get a bit concerned about it.

 

I doubt they see TWC as anything of a threat, which is typical WWE thinking, but having two big wrestling shows on at the same time is going to draw off the same audience to some degree.  Although "WWE fans" and "wrestling fans" are different, there's still considerable crossover.

 

Indeed, although its disappointing that WWE didn't at least try to do some kind of deal with TWC. Admittedly TWC isn't exactly cash rich at the moment, but even one of the c-list shows on there, plugging the Smackdown and Raw broadcasts, would have been a good fit and made commercial sense for both parties.

 

As a one-off, I wouldn't be surprised, but when being asked to buy consistently, then there's definitely going to be a drop off.  If I knew it was only WM XXI that would be PPV, then I'd definitely order.  But knowing there'll be another 7 to buy this year alone, I would think twice.

 

And that's going to be their biggest problems. A colleague of mine is a casual fan and taped the free PPVs to watch the next day, but draws the line at buying PPVs when the quality of them is as bad as it is. He won't buy any of the PPVs when the transition takes place, and I can understand that. It's also a big ask financially - they may get people going for the Big Four and that's it, which would put a huge dent in take-up for, say, Backlash. Unless the cards are decent, well promoted and stocked with good matches, that sort of viewer will just give up.

 

Britain is an important market because we're always a hot crowd when they come over and guarantee sell outs (although that's not true for the SD! shows this time around, for some reason.)  They are going to try and bleed us dry, basically, instead of bringing in more fans, they'll take as much as possible from those that are left.

 

It'd be interesting to know what Setanta's take on all this is, especially if they're picking up any of the slack from the old C4 deal.

 

As for bleeding the market - big mistake. British audiences, as Nik said before, don't have a tradition of PPV viewing (as the Formula One debacle on Sky a couple of years back showed). So if folk just go "screw it, I'm not buying this", they'll seriously struggle. And most folk, faced with a £55 minimum shell-out for a month, will say that.

[Si82 0]

Firstly, Sky Box Office is (obviously) only available to Sky customers, and not people using NTL etc, even though they have access to Sky Sports.

Just a quick point.

 

Sky Box Office IS available to ntl subscribers. However, if all I am going to be seeing is the WWE Experience on Sky One they can go fuck themselves.