10 Big Changes Coming To WWE On Netflix
9. Ratings War Will Require Translation Services
During the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW, television ratings for Raw and Nitro were critical measurements of each program’s success. Eric Bischoff’s podcast “83 Weeks” is a living testament to Nitro’s 19-month dominance over Raw.
Even today, fans and critics will point to the ratings for WWE and AEW programming as “evidence” of each brand’s popularity. That soon will change for Raw with the move to Netflix.
TV ratings are determined via Nielsen, which samples a small, representative group of families who record, either electronically or in a diary, what they watch. Those families are chosen to reflect the demographics of the U.S. viewing audience. A rating point represents 1% of the TV households watching a show (currently, 1% is approximately 1.25 million households). From that, one can estimate the viewership.
Conversely, Netflix reports average viewership for its programming as “views,” calculated by hours viewed divided by total runtime. That is a different metric, and it undoubtedly will factor into a debate about ratings and show popularity. Fans and critics alike will also likely have to take into account the availability of Netflix versus cable TV subscriptions.
The apples-to-apples comparison everyone has grown accustomed to will now require a bit of translation going forward.