10 Reasons WWE Can't Care About Their TV Ratings Anymore
3. Streaming Is Cutting Into TV Ratings
WWE currently has a streaming network that features all WWE original content with a VERY minimized space for commercial advertising. As well, the company is dominant on Youtube, where the company's broadcast strategy is to cut up the three-hour show into manageable five-minute sections including bonus content not shown on the cable broadcast. If you miss Raw one week, try checking out ten streaming content links get to see an edition of Raw that's 50 minutes long instead of three hours. Unless the quality of the presentation and level of engagement required by fans in the storylines improves, what reason is there to ever again watch a 180 minute show when one 1/3rd as long is readily available? In attempting to dominate the digital age, WWE may have outfoxed their own strategy, and in that strategy not changing, WWE needs to accept that their ratings could fall because of it.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
