The WWE Network has attracted an extra 161,000 subscribers since WrestleMania 30 on April 6th. The company ends their second financial quarter with 700,000 subscribers, reflecting a net addition of 33,000 subscribers. Yahoo Finance, who published the results ahead of WWE's later conference call, also revealed that the Network would start rolling out globally on August 12th. Canada will be the first country outside of the USA to start enjoying the service. Additionally, the United Kingdom will attain the Network by October 2014. Further European countries will follow, along with several countries in Asia. This brings forward the worldwide roll-out by a considerable margin, with initial UK plans being for a January debut. This could be a reaction to the number of people who quickly figured out how to subscribe to the US service from abroad. Another big revelation is that WWE will start allowing for one off monthly purchases of the Network. This will effectively kill pay per view for good. If you now want to watch just one event, you can pay $19.99 and get the Network for a month. Maybe the hope is that people will do that and enjoy it so much that they keep the Network. The risk is that people will stop subscribing for six month periods and just subscribe for small windows around SummerSlam, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. Although the numbers increase isn't great and the global roll-out smells of desperation, WWE tried to dress up the Network's success. "Viewer data indicates that, on average, 91% of subscribers access the network at least once per week and use 2.5 devices to consume network content. Moreover, consumer research indicates that 90% of subscribers are satisfied with WWE Network." We await further details on these bold changes in WWE's conference call later today. The company is still some way off hitting their one million subscribers goal which they're attempting to hit by the end of this year.
