WWE: 6 Reasons Why Ratings No Longer Matter

3. The Main Demographic No Longer Watch Television

Now although the WWE is currently marketed as PG, the main demographic has and always will be males aged 12-24. This is common knowledge throughout the entire industry and the basis for any guidelines when it comes to running a wrestling federation. But thanks to the internet age, people are no longer watching the WWE via their television screens, they are either streaming it live or downloading it illegally. Kevin Nash even alluded to this as part of an interview recently when asked about the WWE network. "....My son doesn't want TV. He's 17. He's all online. I think when you look at their target demographic is, nobody in America can get the 14-22 demographic to watch television. That's a demographic people are trying to grab. If you can grab them online with this network, that's a home run. Nobody can touch this "Call of Duty" crew." And there have been multiple studies (that you can actually look up) that show, the majority of the demographic targeted by the WWE and professional wrestling in general are the ones that no longer use the television as their main source of entertainment. And this will cause a serious dent in any ratings system. This is why you don't see them as high as they once were like say, the Attitude era. Sure, you have the parents still tuning in with their kids and some of us old schoolers., but for the average male teenager or young adult (especially in the United States) who are the WWE's biggest supporters, they are watching it online. That could actually be conceived as half of their viewing audience. So if there was no internet, that would be a massive ratings jump, possibly up by as much as 3.0 points. Which would in fact be in line with the average Attitude era in terms of ratings. Which is a nice segueway into my next point....