Report says DirecTV has "no interest" in WWE Network

oh well, i will still try it

 

I don't feel a bit sorry for Directv, Dish, In Demand, and whoever else distributes ppv. If the network fails, I won't feel sorry for wwe either. All of them benefited from ridiculous ppv prices over the last several years. Then there's the stupid 60-40 revenue split in which wwe gets the short end of. When you are only making 40% now it makes a venture where you can ax the gluttonous middle man out altogether. You know one day the ppv distributor would want to jack up their revenue cut even more.

Funny thing though, wouldn't axing ppv carriage altogether force even more to the network and cause even less revenue to come in?

 

To do some dirty math you could just take the total PPV/ year * Ave Price* .40 and that will give you what the potential revenue was for 1 die hard fan a year. Then see if that = more than $120. My guess would be that it is but they're going to be basing it on a cheaper monthly cost will be more appealing to more fans who normally wouldn't want to spend that much on a PPV event. WWE has been good at surviving it's "impending doom" each time it comes up. Who knows maybe if this is successful SoapNet will come back online only as well.

 

I believe the number for them is 1 million subs to break even. Admittedly I thought this network was a very bad idea, and had it been on TV it would have been. First off, this ppv issue was going to be a problem that way for precisely what Directv is crying over now. That would have been a ton of lost revenue for both wwe and the TV outlets. Personally, I think the era of ppv is over. I believe this internet network will be successful and then I think it's only a matter of time before UFC goes this route all the way with their ppvs or strikes a better deal with Fox and their "ppv" events are all on network TV. That would pretty much leave boxing in terms of events on ppv and of those how many are even that big a deal? Not many.

 

JMO, I think the netflix model is a good idea but to say that PPV is going away is a bit much.
We'll see how much of a good idea this is when the sub numbers come back. Also the most frustrating thing is watching something on the internet being interrupted by constant hiccups and freezes. Im a old fashion sit in front of the set person and id rather watch something hard wired than relying on a internet connection. Wonder if you are watching something and the internet goes out??

I'll wait..

 

It's available on demand immediately following and apparently allows for delayed starting of live shows so even based on that it's good. Plus there's this: $9.99 a month vs. at least $45 a month.

 

i been thinking and DirecTV and other companies better hope this isn't the new model to get content on their own term

 

Actually for the outliers and niche channels is this is almost what DIRECTV and others need to have happen so they don't have to pay for it directly. Would allow for a true hybrid a la cart system.

 

- DirecTV made the decision today not to carry any future WWE pay-per-view events.

 

Pretty humorous they decided to do this after Wrestlemania and not before it. They'll be back when Summerslam rolls around.

All this is going to do is push more people towards the WWE Network. Pretty stupid move, imho.

 

WrestleMania was the first PPV on the network so it was the first real test to see how buy rates would be affected. PPV is the one thing where they know for sure how many of their subscribers ordered.

It also didn't help that WWE took away the live preshow that was available for free on TV, WWE.com, YouTube and the app and made it exclusive to the network. (So if you wanted to see the tag team title match at Mania, you would have needed the network anyway)

 

Maybe they decided to do it based on a low number of PPVs sold for Wrestlemania.

Anyway, why should they care if it pushes people towards WWE Network. Few people are subscribing to Directv just to get WWE events, so it isn't as though they'll see an exodus of subscribers from not having them.

 

Yeah I'll bet the buy rate was so low it cost them money to show it rather than not to because of the new online network. It's what they all said before when this whole fiasco was announced.

 

WWE announced that Wrestlemania sold about 400k PPV buys and they announced about 667k subscribers for their network. I saw a site do math and it seems compared to last year money wise WWE did just as well as last year. Last year Wrestlemania did 662k (all these numbers are US only). I'm a bit surprised that with these results Directv would not continue to show WWE PPVs yes there is a drop because of the network but there are obviously still a large amount watching PPVs. I have the Network and Directv so i'm not affected In the end this probably is a win for WWE because hopefully those consumers will now become wwe subscribers and a loss for Directv because its just money they dont have to do much for that comes right to them, Just doesn't make financial sense to me.

 

DIRECTV could have even lost money on the event. Wh have no idea if they have to pay a certain flat amount upfront to carry it. We also don't know how much the fixed cost is to carry it. I doubt its anywhere near zero.

And I think maybe wwe wants everyone to drop their ppv anyway and force everyone to get their network directly.

 

And it's also why the cable and sat companies are going to drop them. They have become worthless and likely close to if not already money losers rather than flat or money makers.

 

cable/sat co's get 40-50% off the top. now i have no idea of what any fixed costs are and i doubt it costs that much to transmit for 3 hours a month but seems like youre just biting off your nose to spite your face to me