Ratings Thread

[Emperor Smeat]

Is Kofi vs Daniel Bryan official? I at least like the story behind that from what I’ve seen.

Obviously the mystique of WrestleMania has slowly been declining year after year for the past decade+ but this year it just jumped off a fucking cliff.
Not official yet but WWE spoiled the twist from last week's Smackdown ending by announcing it for Mania's card on their Instagram account yesterday.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/CorruptedPOD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CorruptedPOD</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CountdownEnded?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CountdownEnded</a> there already promoting Daniel Bryan vs Kofi Kingston ������ <a href="https://t.co/7ZVKrBvRWC">pic.twitter.com/7ZVKrBvRWC</a></p>&mdash; Sonny x Digital (@SonnyVzz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SonnyVzz/status/1110323042675240960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Mr. Nerfect]

I wonder what the WWE Title match at the biggest show of the year was going to be if Kofi didn’t get it? All three challengers for the top title matches have come from freak accidents by the way. Specifically Kofi and Becky — they were never meant to be anything, but they accidentally got over with the bubble, and now they are telling you they are top stars. What about their stories appeals to anyone outside that bubble?

The ratings are apparently down 23% from last year. That’s larger than the TV industry drop. They aren’t going to go out of business, but they are bleeding, and there’s no guarantee this TV money train is going to last past the new contracts.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I’ve gotten into an argument with people on here before about this, but I have no doubt that FOX and USA have it written in that if WWE underperforms they can opt out. They’re paying for a service, and that’s a predictable number of viewers to sell time to advertisers. If the advertisers hold because they are doing better than most things on television, it may not be an issue, but there is potential for a Jamie Kellner-like issue here, where WWE’s faster-than-the-industry trend of performing worse than TV, comparatively, becomes a bone of contention.

[slik]

You are absolutely correct @ Noid.

FOX did not sign a contract that says they have to pay a billion dollars over a handful of years if WWE underperforms. That's just not possible. It wouldn't make sense from a business stand-point. I am sure if they under-perform there is the chance of being sent to FOX SPORTS (which is in less homes than USA Network) at a lesser pay-scale.

[slik]

What is interesting to me, and I've mentioned here before, is if come October another 'shakeup' happens and magically most of the big names are on brand blue, since it will be in a prime position to have more viewers than RAW.

If Roman, Ronda, etc all go to SD then RAW will be left w/o the proven ratings go-getters. So SD going to FOX could actually cause RAW to drop in ratings. And of course, WWE fans have been programmed to treat RAW as the "A SHOW" for years, so will many migrate to Friday night to watch live, or just set their DVRs?

[Loose Cannon]

we're finally seeing the result of years of bland programming, uninteresting stories, very basic scripts.....Oh and creating like 2 stars the last 15 years. They can't rely on the old guard to carry them anymore. There's just a lot more interesting media that attracts people these days and the WWE has been stale for years.

obviously WWe ain't going anywhere anytime soon, but this downward trend will hopefully motivate them to do things differently

[slik]

Jump up in ratings this week for SDLive, only 200k less viewers than RAW


2.39 million viewers per showbuzzdaily

Most watched YT video is currently is New Day vs DBry/Rowan @ 1 million views

[Mr. Nerfect]

It’s going to be hard to bounce back from.

[slik]

Not great ratings news for RAW on the last show before WrestleMania:
Up 70k from last week but down 700k from last year




2.64 million viewers

Hr 1 - 2.75
Hr 2 - 2.79
Hr 3 - 2.37

(credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most watched on YT so far:
Ronda/Becky/Charlotte - 1.9 million
Seth/Brock - 1.5 million

[slik]

SD also dropped this week



SDLive had 2.14 million live viewers this week, down 250k from last week

(credit - showbuzzdaily)





No YT vids from last night's SDLive have cracked a million views yet
Most watched YT currently are:

Kofi signs contract - 585K
AJ/Orton brawl - 451K

[slik]

RAW dropped 1 million live viewers from the post WM34 episode (3.92). Note this is often the most-watched RAW of the year.




Hr 1 - 3.18
Hr 2 - 2.94
Hr 3 - 2.65

Avg - 2.92

credit - showbuzzdaily






most watched YT segments thus far

Dean leaves RAW - 4.8 million
Undertaker/Elias - 1.5 million
Kofi/Seth promo - 1.4 million

[Sepholio]

Almost want to say that dean segment is having its numbers artificially inflated somehow.... That much more than taker and Kofi/Seth? Man I dunno about that.

[Triple A]

Raw gonna drop below 2 million regularly when the football season starts again, it seems

[slik]

Almost want to say that dean segment is having its numbers artificially inflated somehow.... That much more than taker and Kofi/Seth? Man I dunno about that.

The Dean segment is the weekly "here's what happened after RAW went off the air" and those always seem to do really well, better than anything actually on RAW for some reason. The Kofi/Seth segment was the opening promo btw, the match itself has half that amount.

[Sepholio]

Ah I was thinking it was the dean segment from during the show, wasn't thinking about it being the dark segment. Makes more sense now.

[Emperor Smeat]

RAW dropped 1 million live viewers from the post WM34 episode (3.92). Note this is often the most-watched RAW of the year.

Pretty much WWE's ineptness and laziness with a Road to Mania finally came back to bite them big time.

For the past several years, they've been coasting on building up Mania properly but always got bailed out by the RAW After show. This year it didn't happen because of the 1-2 punch of them bungling the hottest storyline (Becky vs Ronda) and very little on the RAW side was interesting coming out of Mania.

[slik]

I think next week won't drop too bad via 'superstar shakeup'

[Mr. Nerfect]

I dunno, Raw sounded really shit. What’s the point of a “shake up” when people appear wherever and whenever they want? But I guess the people watching have low standards. I think it will drop by about 300,000 on average.

[slik]

SD rose 50k viewers from last week but not a great number for post WM episode



This week SDLive had 2.19 million viewers (credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most watched on YT:

Braun/Joe - 1 million
Kofi/The Bar - 655K
Becky/Lacey - 626K

[xrodmuc316]

SD rose 50k viewers from last week but not a great number for post WM episode

I think Smackdown was about 900,000 less viewers than last year's post Mania show.

I know WWE took the gas off the pedal after the new TV deals, probably thinking they could turn it up as soon as the new deals kicked in, but that is a pretty large number of viewers they are going to have to attract/win back.

Fox bought a show that has lost around 30% of its audience since the deal was inked. I have argued that ratings aren't anywhere near the level of importance they used to be, but that doesn't mean the old thinking is completely gone.

A show getting 3 million viewers vs a show getting 2 million is a big difference.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Would be funny if WWE somewhat tanks on FOX and they dump them.

[slik]

They'd be more likely to just move SD to FS1.

Which I kind of assume is what will happen anyway. I think SD will debut 4-5 million but be half that amount a few months later.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I don't even know if it will be a few months. You'd think it'd be easy to retain them with, say, a Rock appearance, Brock Lesnar doing something, Ronda doing something, etc.; but WWE have really proven they don't know how to do things. That Raw show last year was supposed to be special. It spiked ratings and then no one came back.

[slik]

It will be telling too how inclusive SD is. If people tune in and the rosters are merged a bit and they realize to follow this show they have to watch a 3 hr show on a different channel on Monday Nights it will turn new viewers off. Even things getting resolved at a ppv might tune viewers off who want to watch the show and see resolution on the show itself.

It will be interesting to see how they handle it.

[Mr. Nerfect]

That’s a good point. There are certainly interesting times ahead.

[slik]

Hr 1 - 2.69
Hr 2 - 2.76
Hr 3 - 2.55

Avg - 2.66 million viewers

(credit - showbuzzdaily)


YT views:

Miz attacks Shane - 864k
AJ debuts - 673k
Braun/EC3 - 527k

[slik]

FYI last year had a 3.62 rating.

Down almost 1 million viewers.

[Emperor Smeat]

Not surprised it ended up being lower than last week's RAW After Mania. Might be a new record for how quickly WWE squandered the momentum carried from a Mania.

The drop being just 14k from start to finish is really good compared to the usual trends but 1st Hour being almost 500k less than last week pretty much doomed this week.

[slik]

SDLive had 2.22 million viewers this week
credit - showbuzzdaily


Most watched on YT is Roman punching Vince w/ 1.5. million views, dwarfing anything from RAW this week.

[Emperor Smeat]

From Observer's Dave Melzter on WWE's ratings woes and why its getting worse this year compared to sports.

The only demo where they average around the same decline percentage as tv in general is the over 50 group due to it being their main demo.

The year to year drop for WWE is so significant. The NBA regular season are equal to what they had last year, so no drop despite LeBron playing on the West Coast and not making the playoffs. The NFL were actually up on the last year.

He says Sports and TV ratings are going down to digital platforms but not to a degree of 25% per year in any way, shape or form. Last weeks Raw and Last weeks Smackdown are down 25% uniformly.

Demos, from 1 year ago to now.

Teenagers are Down 29% on last year.

18-34's are Down 37% (!) from last year. He emphasizes this sucks.

35-49's are Down 27% from last year, he also says that is horrendous.

50+'s are down 10%, this is the likely demo that watches the show regularly.

So if you go under the ages of 49 years old, WWE have huge drops in every demographic from 1 year ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/be9499/meltzer_analysis_on_wwes_ratings_drop/

[Mr. Nerfect]

That year-to-year drop is not good.

[xrodmuc316]

Melzter is nothing but an AEW stooge these days. Being that biased hurts his credibility. He is way to happy gloating about WWE ratings, while going out of his way to defend anything that doesn't paint AEW in flying colors. Example

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2019/04/latest-aew-tv-deal-rumors-653265/

[Mr. Nerfect]

I don’t get it. He’s saying that they’re looking to get paid for a 2-hour show. What is wrong with that?

[XL]

I think he “revels” in the ratings decline because he hopes it kicks Vince/WWE in the arse and approach things differently. I think he genuinely wants WWE to be watchable/good/great but they’re just not right now.

[slik]

Slight drop this week, mainly due to 3rd hour tanking via dumb Baron Corbin in main-event




Hr 1 - 2.68
Hr 2 - 2.30
Hr 3 - 2.15

Avg - 2.38 million viewers

(credit to showbuzzdaily)

Both Bray and AJ/Contenders segments are at 1.2 million views on YT currently

[Mr. Nerfect]

They're getting closer and closer to that 2 million viewer line.

[#1-norm-fan]

I think he “revels” in the ratings decline because he hopes it kicks Vince/WWE in the arse and approach things differently. I think he genuinely wants WWE to be watchable/good/great but they’re just not right now.

Yeah. I think that’s why most of us who revel in it do so. It’s not just shadenfreude. It’s the hope that enough people eventually stop clinging on to the WWE habit so they have to decide that just making sure they’re putting out content and phoning it in week after week isn’t good enough and that quality is important.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

Melzter is nothing but an AEW stooge these days. Being that biased hurts his credibility. He is way to happy gloating about WWE ratings, while going out of his way to defend anything that doesn't paint AEW in flying colors. Example

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2019/04/latest-aew-tv-deal-rumors-653265/

lol you are such a strange man

[Mr. Nerfect]

Good to see that the shake-up freshened things up for them.

(It's a little bit schadenfreude from me)

[slik]

Live tv ratings are slightly down this week for SDLive, likely due to NHL/NBA




2.07 million viewers

credit - showbuzzdaily


Most watched on YT currently:
KO turns on Kofi - 890K
Shane/Elias attack Roman - 717K

[slik]

Yikes @ live tv viewers this week for #RAW #WWE



Hr 1 - 2.34
Hr 2 - 2.24
Hr 3 - 1.89


Avg - 2.16 million viewers
(credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most watched on YT:
Seth/AJ contract signing - 1.3 million
Becky/Lacey brawl - 776K

[Triple A]

Terrible...

[slik]

For comparison RAW Live TV ratings since night after WM:


Apr 8 - 2.92 million
Apr 15 - 2.66 million
Apr 22 - 2.38 million
Apr 30 - 2.16 million


This same week in 2018 - 3.06 million viewers

[Emperor Smeat]

Yikes @ live tv viewers this week for #RAW #WWE

The scary part is next week likely going to topple that for an all-time low since nothing about RAW changed creatively from the Shakeup.

They squandered both the momentum from Mania and the Shakeup in record fashion. RAW getting a quality boost for their tag division meant nothing since Vince despises tag wrestling and it showed this week.

Probably safe to call the Bruce Prichard experiment a big failure for RAW's Creative considering its gotten a lot worse since he was hired.

[KIRA]

Oh Im enjoying this

[KIRA]

WWE: WWe universe your voices have been heard and we promise you a new era MORE BARON CORBIN and have Sami Zayn run down the audience that will put asses in seats

[slik]

In 2010 TNA had 2.2 million viewers in ratings

[KIRA]

In 2010 TNA had 2.2 million viewers in ratings

Yep that was their boom period

[Danny Electric]

Wow Cesaro is already on Main Event.

[xrodmuc316]

Wow Cesaro is already on Main Event.

Because nothing makes sense.

How is it that Ricochet is in the men's MITB after losing his last Raw match, yet the guy that beat him last week not only isn't in that match, he wasn't even on Raw this week? A 3 hour show and they couldn't figure out a spot to get Roode on tv, but Lucha House Party got 2 segments???

[slik]

SD could dip under 2 million this week,

SD ratings since WM:

Apr 9 - 2.19 million
Apr 16 - 2.22 million
Apr 23 - 2.07 million

[ClockShot]

Any bets on when Vince appears on TV again and ask the fans what the hell is going on with Raw when the ratings keep tanking?

[Mr. Nerfect]

Oh Im enjoyong this

Me too.

[Mr. Nerfect]

The other wrestling forum I am part of's ratings thread is more active than it's SmackDown thread, lol. This is getting to be a "story." Investors actually questioned the falling ratings, and as they fall way faster than other cable properties, it's only going to be questioned more and more, by all sorts of stakeholders.

This could snowball, and I am very excited to see what happens next week. And when you're ratings are more exciting than your TV product, then you're in real shit.

[KIRA]

The other wrestling forum I am part of's ratings thread is more active than it's SmackDown thread, lol. This is getting to be a "story." Investors actually questioned the falling ratings, and as they fall way faster than other cable properties, it's only going to be questioned more and more, by all sorts of stakeholders.

This could snowball, and I am very excited to see what happens next week. And when you're ratings are more exciting than your TV product, then you're in real shit.
It was bound to happen sooner or later right you can only insult your fans with garbage for so long operating them for hating the fact that you're giving them garbage and blaming them before they just say f*** it and change the channel or go do something else.

Vince's entire deal as noted by osw review is you don't like what you like I tell you what you like.
And if it's not clear by now that that is not the way this works then there's no hope for this company as long as he's at the helm.

[Droford]

SD could dip under 2 million this week,

SD ratings since WM:

Apr 9 - 2.19 million
Apr 16 - 2.22 million
Apr 23 - 2.07 million

kofis losing at MITB

[Mr. Nerfect]

It was bound to happen sooner or later right you can only insult your fans with garbage for so long operating them for hating the fact that you're giving them garbage and blaming them before they just say f*** it and change the channel or go do something else.

Vince's entire deal as noted by osw review is you don't like what you like I tell you what you like.
And if it's not clear by now that that is not the way this works then there's no hope for this company as long as he's at the helm.

Definitely. WWE has been insulting for a long time and the company does not have its finger on the pulse. They have no stars and people have lost faith in them to create them.

[Mr. Nerfect]

kofis losing at MITB

Lol, Owens winning the belt is not going to help matters. Not sure if anything will.

[#1-norm-fan]

In theory, heel Owens might be a better ratings draw than Kofi. But it’s all under WWE’s watch so, fuck it. Might as well put the title on Curt Hawkins.

[Tom Guycott]

The other wrestling forum I am part of's ratings thread is more active than it's SmackDown thread, lol. This is getting to be a "story." Investors actually questioned the falling ratings, and as they fall way faster than other cable properties, it's only going to be questioned more and more, by all sorts of stakeholders.

This could snowball, and I am very excited to see what happens next week. And when you're ratings are more exciting than your TV product, then you're in real shit.

It was bound to happen sooner or later right you can only insult your fans with garbage for so long operating them for hating the fact that you're giving them garbage and blaming them before they just say f*** it and change the channel or go do something else.

Vince's entire deal as noted by osw review is you don't like what you like I tell you what you like.
And if it's not clear by now that that is not the way this works then there's no hope for this company as long as he's at the helm.

--- Incoming TL;DR post ---

And I find this all the more ironic, considering NXT is better than the primary roster shows, and it is buried on the Network. If *that* were on TV where more people could see it, it would be ruined as well by trying to make it "consumer friendly" instead of keeping what attracts fans in the first fucking place. They already prove it by screwing over 90% of the call-ups, no matter how well they prominently were featured; they essentially make these folks "start over - again", since they likely had to start over in NXT to begin with.

Though I feel there is a degree of Vince being "out of touch", I don't think it is so much that he doesn't have "it" anymore as much as "it" doesn't jive with corporate think in a massive publicly traded company. The man is trying to serve two masters, and both of them suffer for it.

I saw a vid earler about how shitty the new Sonic movie trailer is, and heard one simple quote that is applicable:

"This looks like it'll please a borardroom."

It is applicable here as well. They keep doing shit that makes advertisers and shareholders happy and keeps parent's groups relatively quiet... but that comes at the detriment of keeping what is cool about wresting as an attraction. They spend more time trying to shape it into their "live action-adventure drama series" or whatever the fuck they categorize it as when they talk about RAW being the longest running of it than to cultivate and sustain what keeps fans relatively happy and wanting more.

They're quick to say stuff like "x isn't a draw", but in the current environment, who is - or can be? Most of the roster is filled with interchangable jobbers. That may not have been the intent, but it sure as hell is what they present them as. Titles are just a thing you have (or, in the case of the women, it is your turn for) not a thing people battle for. There was a point where Nakamura was numero uno hot shit IN SPITE OF HIS ENGLISH NOT BEING GOOD, and they did fuck all with that. Basically squandered it in short order, even with the golden heel turn, amounting to nothing, and then just randomly teaming with Rusev because reasons.

Meanwhile, on the other end (and this isn't really an excuse to bag on him this time) you have Roman Reigns, who is clearly supposed to be the mold of a champion. To the point that they were doing cart-before-horse advertising with him, making him SuperCena II, and throwing every bell and whistle into trying to get him over as that guy up to and including having one of the most popular wrestlers in the history of EVER actively endorse that guy... and through none of that did they realize (or, if they did, didn't care) that all of those things were a pretty large factor in why it is so hard to get him over. Baron Corbin is getting the reaction they want him to, but not for the reason why. It is not because he is a great heel who generates massive heat, it is because the fans percieve it as trolling by WWE, and they really don't want to see the guy. To paraphrase Cornette: "It isn't we want to see this heel get beat up, it's we don't want to see this heel!" Before, it was likely they'd pick up on that and adjust accordingly. Now, it's like even if they know, fuck it because he's getting boo'd.

Most of this shit consists of blatantly shallow attempts. Just like it was blatant and shallow to try to make Jinder a world champion right before attempting to crack the market in India. Just like it was blatant and shallow to try to build a roster around Eva Marie because she "is hot" (and I always feel that I have to object to that) and she apparently came across as a bitchy heel on an auxillary show nobody regularly watching wrestling gives much of a fuck about. TJP's whole gimmick screamed of being a corporate image of "what all the kids are into nowadays". I seriously believe deep down that the whole reason for the pre-injury push for "Ali" was exactly the same as the aforementioned Jinder push, just for another Middle Eastern show instead... his size deficiency was overridden by him being brown. They constantly try to find a replacement for Rey for a Mexican market, but most of the time, they keep trying to distill him to flippy shit and masks to sell to kids instead of the fact that, at this point, Rey is a goddamn legend.

They just need to re-evaluate the fact that they're going more off the rails because they're just not that cool thing to watch anymore. Cool things happen occasionally, but not often enough. Cool personalities emerge, but it is often in spite of WWE, not because of their creative direction. They've become tryhards in the game they pretty much wrote the rules for. They need to go back to what go them to their prominence in the first place and stop trying to manufacture shit in time for investor reports or a particular foreign tour.

[#1-norm-fan]

SD could dip under 2 million this week,

SD ratings since WM:

Apr 9 - 2.19 million
Apr 16 - 2.22 million
Apr 23 - 2.07 million

Aaaaaand it did.

1.83 million.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I’m enjoying this way too much.

[slik]

Yep!

1.83 million indeed


Most watched on YT:
LARS attacks Hardy Boys - 1 million
Roman vs. B-Team - 692K

[Emperor Smeat]

Another 200k-300k less and they'd be dipping in Tape Era range for viewership lows.

Worst for SD is the more it lowers, the lower the boost from FOX's reach is going to be when they move. Right now, it needs to more than double just to be at where FOX currently gets for numbers on Fridays.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Yeah, that’s not happening.

[Emperor Smeat]

Observer's Dave Meltzer predicting Smackdown could be as low as 1.65 million by the end of the month due to how heavy the competition is going to get for WWE.

As bad as these numbers are, they could get even lower with the NBA playoffs getting into the deeper rounds and network TV shows soon airing their season finales, which are often the highest rated episodes of the year. For instance, the May 1, 2018 episode of SmackDown did 2.436 million viewers, with the show falling to 2.195 million for the May 29 episode. If the number falls at the same rate this year, that could mean a number as low as 1.65 million by the end of the month.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Ouch

[BigCrippyZ]

:lol:

This is going to be hilariously awesome

[Triple A]

Raw number will also probably get even more brutal when the NFL season starts... 1.7 million regularly for Raw maybe?

[Mr. Nerfect]

And what can they do? They can't just snap their fingers and make a star in the environment they've crafted for themselves. They're kind of boned.

[Emperor Smeat]

Raw number will also probably get even more brutal when the NFL season starts... 1.7 million regularly for Raw maybe?

That feels about right.

Last year WWE lost over a million viewers from the post-Mania RAW show to the start of the NFL season. Then an an extra 200k-400k loss per week from that start point during the season.

If they have a similar drop, they might be starting around the 1.7 million to 1.9 million range and dip as low as the 1.4 million range.

[slik]

My guess for the floor for both shows is 1.7 for RAW and 1.5 for SDLive

[Tom Guycott]

And what can they do? They can't just snap their fingers and make a star in the environment they've crafted for themselves. They're kind of boned.

Yet, that's what they keep trying to do. And, as you pointed out, they've crafted the environment for themselves.

Hogan, Austin/Rock, and even to a degree Cena were as much happenstance as product. There were a lot of moving parts in not only the wrestling industry, but pop culture as a whole. Even now, trends have shifted. For example, one of the things that "makes a star" with the fans is the "holy shit, I can't believe they're actually running with this person I like" feeling that they've cultivated, yet seem to either be oblivious to or don't care that they've done so. And that's on top of the lazy writing, telegraphing, shoehorning, and all around lack of stakes.

The company, though, seems to labor under their own dilusion that they can reproduce exactly the best results results on a whim by putting x time and y gimmick into z wrestler like working on an assembly line.

More often than not, they just eat their own tails.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

The excuse they like is that fans shit on whomever they want them to cheer for to be cool. Not understanding that it's their poor execution that leads to the less-than-desired reaction.

[slik]

If Brock returns I don't know how much that will bump things either tbh

Any return from Goldberg, Taker, Brock fans know is temporary

[Triple A]

Almost feels like Vince purposefully keeps potential stars down so that they don't become "bigger than the WWE brand"

[xrodmuc316]

Yet, that's what they keep trying to do. And, as you pointed out, they've crafted the environment for themselves.

Hogan, Austin/Rock, and even to a degree Cena were as much happenstance as product. There were a lot of moving parts in not only the wrestling industry, but pop culture as a whole. Even now, trends have shifted. For example, one of the things that "makes a star" with the fans is the "holy shit, I can't believe they're actually running with this person I like" feeling that they've cultivated, yet seem to either be oblivious to or don't care that they've done so. And that's on top of the lazy writing, telegraphing, shoehorning, and all around lack of stakes.

The company, though, seems to labor under their own dilusion that they can reproduce exactly the best results results on a whim by putting x time and y gimmick into z wrestler like working on an assembly line.

More often than not, they just eat their own tails.

Hogan, Austin, Rock, Cena, they all got over naturally, and then WWE got behind them and ran with them.

Now a days, getting yourself over naturally is career suicide. Rusev is worse off now then he ever was. In 1998 they would have just let Rusev break into the main event and become a huge star. When it happened in 2018, they killed it for no reason. Broke him up from Aiden, had him job to Jinded Mahal at Mania, put him in goofy storylines about Milwaukee, turned him heel, and had him lose like what, 18 PPVs in a row?

If the point is to make money off of superstars, why do then devalue anybody who is getting over and could be a big star?

As long as WWE is the star, and nobody is allowed to be THE draw, then they are not bringing in any new fans.

[Tom Guycott]

I wasn't saying they didn't get over naturally, and I agree about them getting themselves over and the company running with it... although with Hogan, it was a bit more 50/50 in being the man to fill the role, but also having the role presented to him to begin with. Sorta like the Undertaker being a situational million dollar gimmick that wouldn't work on the wrong person. But part of why and how they got themselves over. I consider Cena a lesser degree, because they begrudgingly got behind him, since Vince, by his own admission, "didn't see it".

[Tom Guycott]

Almost feels like Vince purposefully keeps potential stars down so that they don't become "bigger than the WWE brand"



If the point is to make money off of superstars, why do then devalue anybody who is getting over and could be a big star?



And this is the biggest conundrum of them all, as the endgame appears to be to manufacture more stars like The Rock, who transcends wrestling and becomes a Hollywood star and a pop culture icon... but when Cena did it, they... got mad at him? And when Batista did it... they didn't want him to?

I asked some time ago on the subject of Asuka of why the company would even hire Kana at all? What was the point if aquiring her was to squander her talents while they try to get the next bikini model over as "top draw"? But really, that question could be asked of a lot of the talent. Especially the poor sods in NXT, most of whom bust their asses to get better or even get over to begin with
(:cough:PatrickClark:cough: ) and the potential "reward" on the horizon is more money to become an underutilized afterthought.

[Emperor Smeat]

Based on some reading elsewhere, its pretty much a lock RAW is going to set new record lows for the next 2 weeks.

Next Monday has them going up against Bucks vs. Celtics Game 4, Warriors vs. Rockets Game 4, and whatever NHL playoff games might be on as well.

The following week is the taped UK edition of RAW which typically is one of the least viewed episodes of the year.

Same for Smackdown likely going to set some abysmal numbers since they've been averaging in the high 70s to mid 80s range for weekly percentages of RAW's audiences.

[slik]

There are actually two weeks of shows taped from the UK I believe!

[slik]

Some more ratings info:

Meltzer shared in the Observer that DVR accounts for about 100-120k viewers, so most fans still watch the show live.



SD in demos this week:

0.34 in 12-17 (down 24.4 percent from last week)
0.38 in 18-34 (down 33.3 percent)
0.70 in 35-49 (down 17.6 percent)
0.83 in 50+ (down 2.4 percent).
The audience was 67.9 percent male in 18-49 and 66.3 percent male in 12-27.





RAW in demos this week:

0.42 in 12-17 (down 2.3 percent)
0.56 in 18-34 (up 1.8 percent)
0.88 in 35-49 (down 28.5 percent)
0.92 in 50+ (down 5.2 percent)
The audience was 66.7 percent male in 18-49 and 57.7 percent male in 12-17.

[Mr. Nerfect]

This is from last week. Wow.

[xrodmuc316]

I wasn't saying they didn't get over naturally, and I agree about them getting themselves over and the company running with it... although with Hogan, it was a bit more 50/50 in being the man to fill the role, but also having the role presented to him to begin with. Sorta like the Undertaker being a situational million dollar gimmick that wouldn't work on the wrong person. But part of why and how they got themselves over. I consider Cena a lesser degree, because they begrudgingly got behind him, since Vince, by his own admission, "didn't see it".

Right, that's what I meant. If somebody got over, WWE used to happily give them the ball and let them run with it. Nowadays, if somebody gets over, they kick them in the nuts and purposely ruin them.

[#1-norm-fan]

The excuse they like is that fans shit on whomever they want them to cheer for to be cool. Not understanding that it's their poor execution that leads to the less-than-desired reaction.

That excuse is so bizarre. There are plenty of good, successful shows, movie franchises, book series, etc. where the writers succeed in captivating the audience. This “blame the fans” idea really only exists (at least to this level) in WWE. So are they saying there’s some gene specific to wrestling fans post 2001 that makes them hate anything WWE wants them to like? Or are they admitting to breeding that reaction in their fan base (which would be their fault)?

These are rhetorical questions obviously, as the real answer is that’s an excuse a 5 year old would come up with to shake responsibility. They had a TV show on the network dedicated to telling fans why they’re wrong for thinking the product has become shit. How insecure can you get. Lol

[BigCrippyZ]

Honestly, it's this idea that they can serve multiple masters at once that's gotten them to where they are today. The idea that they can be kid or family friendly as it relates to creative/programming, sponsorships, partnerships, etc., without eventually turning off and losing large swaths of fans (over the age of 9) that are actually your largest audience was the biggest mistake they ever made.

In the process of attempting to generate revenues by appealing primarily to kids and families you subsequently devalued your own product through poor creative decisions or lack of concern. In turn, you've either 1. forgot how or are too out of touch to create a good product for people over age 9, 2. you simply can't salvage things creatively without an actual major overhaul, 3. you simply don't care, or 4. some combination of all three.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Are they even appealing to kids though? Pretty sure most have better taste.

There’s lots of reasons this is happening. They’ve destroyed consumer faith because they don’t make stars because they can’t make stars because they destroyed kayfabe and the audience rejects whoever gets pushed.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

because they destroyed kayfabe and the audience rejects whoever gets pushed.

It doesn't help... but if they were better at pushing those people the fan would cease rejecting them - kayfabe or not

[BigCrippyZ]

Are they even appealing to kids though? Pretty sure most have better taste.

There’s lots of reasons this is happening. They’ve destroyed consumer faith because they don’t make stars because they can’t make stars because they destroyed kayfabe and the audience rejects whoever gets pushed.

Probably not anymore, but they attempted to do so for such a long period and it didn't really work out as well as they believed it would. I think that is where they really started to fall off the rails in terms of their creative becoming awful and have since never recovered and instead seems to have regressed even further. Since then, it's like Vince forgot how or just doesn't care to make characters and storylines interesting and diverse.

[Lucky]

RAW is too long

[Mr. Nerfect]

They try to appeal to kids, no doubt, but they don’t know how to. A good kids product would be better than this.

[#1-norm-fan]

Yeah, I never got the PG argument. While it restricts you in some ways, it doesn’t completely handicap you. You’ve just gotta focus more on storytelling.

[BigCrippyZ]

Yeah, I never got the PG argument. While it restricts you in some ways, it doesn’t completely handicap you. You’ve just gotta focus more on storytelling.

It just seems like in doing so they forgot how to appeal to anyone or tell a coherent story simply because a lot of kids will overlook a lot more in terms of quality and still watch or buy products than adults will.

[#1-norm-fan]

Right. All you need to appeal to kids is bright lights and violence so... fuck it, apparently.

They really do seem to wanna put in as little creative effort as possible while still making money.

[#1-norm-fan]

Yet they still do things to appeal to the IWC here and there which just shows they still try and exposes their ineptness. I’d respect WWE more if they just ignored the hardcores completely.

[slik]

I actually think the floor for RAW and SD is 1.0 and 1.5 million but I am not sure that could possibly happen until the fall.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I’m not sure there is a floor.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Tuesday can’t come quick enough. I want dem numbers!

[slik]

RAW went slightly up, due to the 1st hour




Hr 1 - 2.47
Hr 2 - 2.24
Hr 3 - 2.02

Avg - 2.24 million

(credit - showbuzzdaily)



Most watched on YT:

Roman invades RAW - 959k
Kofi vs Dbry - 828k
Samoe Joe meets Rey's son - 825k

[Emperor Smeat]

Legit surprised that the 3rd hour didn't go under 2 million considering how bad the show was by that point.

[slik]

I suspect it will next week. It barely was above 2 million this week in the 3rd hour.

Note the sharp decline (again) from Hr 1 to Hr 3.

[slik]

Also, this is the 2nd lowest rating for RAW in 2019, ahead of only last week.

[slik]

Also, the 5th lowest rated Raw of all time.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Phew. Crisis averted. Time to relax, guys.

[#1-norm-fan]

If CyNick were still alive he would have made that same post with 0 sarcasm.

[Evil Vito]

Great talent working great matches every week. Great time to be a fan.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

I also wish Destor was still here to tell us we're all dumb marks and Vince is a genius who's framed the office as the heels to pique our interest... despite nobody watching.

[Evil Vito]

Destor coming back would be a good way to ensure I take a prolonged break from TPWW.

[Innovator]

CyNick would be praising their strategy

[slik]

I always enjoy when people go on and on about how 'ratings don't matter to WWE' and then every time ratings drop WWE 'all of a sudden, for no reason' decides to make some big change or throw a ton of people on RAW.

Hmmm!

[slik]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is my formula for saving <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWERaw?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WWERaw</a>:<br><br>I think WWE should let the wrestlers say mean things to each other and talk about how awesome and tough they are. And not all talk like they are trying to audition for an Adam Sandler movie in 1998.<br><br>Also, have cool <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrestling?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#wrestling</a> matches.</p>&mdash; JE Snowden (@JESnowden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JESnowden/status/1125556840631349248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

Destor coming back would be a good way to ensure I take a prolonged break from TPWW.

I love Destor. INCREDIBLY knowledgable about wrestling. But his love of the smell of his own farts became a bit too much to deal with.

[Big Vic]

And that's why you got rid of him.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

And that's why you got rid of him.

My proudest scalping.

[Evil Vito]

You can barely count the number of stars WWE has made in probably the last decade. And you only become a star through two processes.

You either debut straight into the main event and so never get sucked into the black hole that is the WWE midcard (Styles, Charlotte, and The Shield).....and even then Ambrose eventually got sucked into the midcard)

Or you become a star in spite of the booking, rather than because of it as a poster child for fan backlash (Bryan and Becky).

If you don't enter the main roster as a massive deal and go immediately into world title contention, it's 99% likely that you're done right out of the gate.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

CyNick would be praising their strategy

tbh pretty sure Destor would too

[slik]

slight rise of 100k for SD




SDLive had 1.93 million viewers

(credit - showbuzz daily)




Most watched on YT:

AJ vs Sami vs Kofi - 680k
Miz attacks Shane - 480k

[Mr. Nerfect]

Destor coming back would be a good way to ensure I take a prolonged break from TPWW.

Why did everyone turn on Destor? What did I miss? I liked the guy.

Great talent working great matches every week. Great time to be a fan.

Great talent working the same match every week.

[slik]

Nobody turned on Destor, he just got really unhappy posting here IIRC

[Evil Vito]

Destor knew a lot about the business since he's supposedly worked the indies (but he never disclosed his ring name)

But he often times seemed like he was just trying to be the forum contrarian.

[Mr. Nerfect]

In Destor’s defense, this place does suck a lot of the time.

[Evil Vito]

Of course, CSL was also in the business and was kinda similar in that he'd be one of the few people defending WWE amongst a sea of negativity.

Maybe there's something to be said about how people in the business invariably view the company differently than most of us because they're focused on more than just "was the show good?" Or more specifically...they have a different way of interpreting if a show was good.

[Evil Vito]

Like that Al Snow shoot I reference all the time where he asks what the best match of WM3 was and when the guy says Savage/Steamboat, he was like "fuck no, Hogan and Andre sold the tickets and therefore it was the best match"

[slik]

I'd be surprised if Destor thought the current product was good at all tbh

Between here, twitter, etc I have never seen so many people say they are are fed up, not going to watch anymore or just about not going to watch if it continues. Even an account I follow on insta that gets pics of the sets for WM/RR before they leak said they are done.

[slik]

If you read a lot of comments on WWE's tweets/posts on fb too it's a big trend lately as well.

[slik]

Note: I try to never read comments on FB posts in general.

[Mr. Nerfect]

There’s a logic to that though. I can understand that perspective without having worked a lick.

I didn’t really get Destor as a WWE apologist, honestly. He seemed more critical of the dirt sheets, which could be a guarded business thing. But mainly he just looked at metrics and made sense a lot of the time. Raw was still doing comparatively well on cable. I’d like to think he’d look at them sliding at a faster rate than other properties and call a spade a spade.

[Mr. Nerfect]

The only WWE apologists I’ve really really seen on here are CyNick and more recently STD for some reason.

[Evil Vito]

Also for what it's worth with Destor - I don't even think it was a TPWW-exclusive thing. He'd mentioned that he also eliminated nearly all of his social media presence and was just spending less time on the internet in general.

I like to think he is living in a cabin with a corgi, miles away from other civilization

[Mr. Nerfect]

Sounds good to me, honestly. More power to the guy.

[Emperor Smeat]

slight rise of 100k for SD

Find it a bit interesting that the show went up in viewers but the Youtube views took a massive hit going by Most Watched.

Last week was 1 million & 690k for top videos while this week was 680k & 480k going by the posts.

Could just be a simple side effect of them delaying uploading videos or worse, people starting to tune out on not even bothering to watch clips anymore.

[Mr. Nerfect]

The “hardcores” are rallying behind WWE. This is their fan movement pushing those ratings up.

[slik]

They aren't delayed much, re: YT vids

They just wait until Midnight Eastern to upload now instead of during the show itself, which I don't know why they were ever doing in the first place lol.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Pretty excited about this week's ratings. Don't the taped UK shows typically do a little worse? They're also coming off a shitty week last week.

[slik]

My guess is the show drops this week. I would guess 1.9 - 2 million.

Taped show + big ratings drops lately + just wasn't very good overall.

[slik]

RAW went slightly up



Hr 1 - 2.57
Hr 2 - 2.39
Hr 3 - 2.08

Avg - 2.35

(credit - showbuzzdaily)




Most watched on YT so far:

Bray Wyatt - 1.4 million
Roman/Miz vs Elias/Lashley - 1.1 million
Contract Signing - 759k

[Emperor Smeat]

Either people were really bored on Monday or someone in WWE sold their soul to somehow get a taped show that wasn't good to actually go up in numbers when the opposite usually happens.

[slik]

Yeah, really too bad in this instance....we need the show to pretty much crash under 2 million solidly for a bit so WWE feels like they have to make real, substantial changes...not just put a band-aid on larger problems.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Boo. I want this bullshit to crash and burn.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I mean it is, but I mean without reprieve.

[xrodmuc316]

Rather surprised at in increase for a taped, pretty lame show.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I'm hearing there was no competition. And the taped/live thing has been debunked as a myth these days, especially with WWE being more in-line with how entertainment is perceived as opposed to live sports.

[slik]

SD tied it's record low rating


1.83 million viewers

credit - showbuzzdaily



Most Watched on YT:

Roman tag - 939k
Roman opens show - 844k

[Triple A]

New record low actually slightly (1.827m vs. 1.833m on April 30)

[slik]

The Wild Card Era bay bay!

[Mr. Nerfect]

Not surprising, considering it was taped (I think this makes a bigger difference for secondary programming), and SmackDown always suffers when the roster split ends. Wasn’t there also something more important on?

[Emperor Smeat]

Post Wrestling's Rewind-A-Smackdown show had a very interesting discussion on how much of a mess and blunder Vince's Wild Card idea has become.

They legit stopped last night's review show for a few minutes just to debate on if a Lacey Evans promo video counted for the "4 person" rule because of how confusing WWE has been trying to follow it.

[Droford]

I wouldnt count a pretaped promo

[Droford]

Not surprising, considering it was taped (I think this makes a bigger difference for secondary programming), and SmackDown always suffers when the roster split ends. Wasn’t there also something more important on?

a non-competitive nba game

[slik]

Slight bump after MITB



Hr 1 - 2.68
Hr 2 - 2.58
Hr 3 - 2.29

Avg - 2.51 million viewers

(credit - showbuzz daily)




Most Watched on YT:

RTruth wins 24/7 Title - 1.2 million
Brock and briefcase - 1.1 million

[XL]

“Look at those YT views, we’re making good choices!”

[Emperor Smeat]

3rd hour not being a total disaster helped out a lot. Had it been like the past couple of weeks of being right near the 2 million line, then there is no PPV bump and it would have actually been lower than the week before.

Also :lol: at Truth's 24/7 title win being more popular than the actual debut of the belt itself.

[xrodmuc316]

3rd hour not being a total disaster helped out a lot. Had it been like the past couple of weeks of being right near the 2 million line, then there is no PPV bump and it would have actually been lower than the week before.

Also :lol: at Truth's 24/7 title win being more popular than the actual debut of the belt itself.

I'm telling you that Lesnar cash in hook has a shelf life, but for a few weeks it will certainly keep some people bailing on the 3rd hour.

[Mr. Nerfect]

This is a rattle. People are tuning in, but are they impressed?

[slik]

Live TV ratings for SDLive are in - 3rd week under 2 million


1.98 million viewers

(credit - showbuzz daily)


Most Watched on YT:
Roman vs Elias - 1 million
R-Truth runs from arena - 916k

[Mr. Nerfect]

They only need to find 1.5 million viewers on a network with 25% more exposure. Easy done.

[slik]

RAW drops this week 300k



Hr 1 - 2.27
Hr 2 - 2.25
Hr 3 - 2.05

Avg - 2.19 million viewers

credit - showbuzzdaily




Most watched on YT:

Brock learns the rules of MITB - 5.1 million
Shane attacks Roman - 1 million
Kofi at BBQ - 990k
Seth/Kofi call out Brock - 823k

[Emperor Smeat]

Really surprised the big drop off didn't happen between the 1st and 2nd hour considering the lack of wrestling and how boring the 1st hour was even by WWE standards.

[slik]

For SD a slight bump (opposite of RAW)


2.07 million viewers

credit - showbuzzdaily


Most Watched on YT:
Roman/R-Truth vs Elias/Drew - 2.2 million
Elias wins 24/7 Title - 1.1 million

[slik]

RAW went up this week


Hr 1 - 2.31
Hr 2 - 2.56
Hr 3 - 2.35


Avg - 2.41 million viewers

credit - showbuzzdaily




Most Watched on YT:

Arm-Wrestling - 2.9 million
Brock beats up Seth - 2.2 million
R-Truth hides under ring - 1.6 million

[Mr. Nerfect]

I'm sure they were thoroughly impressed by the show.

[Emperor Smeat]

One of the rare times in the year where the 3rd hour does better than the 1st.

According to the Observer, that 1st to 2nd hour increase was the largest since March 2015.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Was that when they were promoting Brock?

[Emperor Smeat]

Had to look it up and it was them promoting Jon Stewart on the show again. The prior week Stewart kicked Rollins in the nuts.

Same show also had Curtis Axel in his Hogan-like "AxelMania" persona get destroyed by Cena during Cena's road to beating Rusev for the US belt at Mania 31.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Oh, sorry, I meant this week with the second hour doing well. Was that when Brock was supposed to cash in? If so, I wonder how people feel about having their interest punished that way?

Kudos on your researching though.

[Emperor Smeat]

Yeah and its probably due to people correctly knowing WWE wasn't going to do a cash-in early into the show and it would likely happen either in the 2nd or 3rd hour.

Last time Taker was on RAW he was the main event so its likely people knew the cash-in attempt wasn't going to be last and made a stronger case of it happening somewhere in the 2nd hour or at the start of the 3rd.

[slik]

I forgot to post SD ratings from last week, it did 2.07 million viewers

Goldberg/Taker currently (today) has 7.9 million views on YT
Elias/R-Truth has 2 million
Truth hiding under the ring has 1 million
Shane attack Roman has 915k

[slik]

btw, YT views this week for RAW looking really bad so far....read NBA game did big ratings (14 million) as well.

RAW ratings should be out in about 100 minutes...

[Big Vic]

NBA/E3

[slik]

Hr 1 - 2.380
Hr 2 - 2.086
Hr 3 - 1.909

Avg - 2.125 million

credit - showbuzzdaily




Most watched on YT:

R-Truth in Elevator - 1.7 million
Shane celebration - 638k
Seth vs KO - 579k

[slik]

^ New low for a non-holiday episode btw

[Emperor Smeat]

According to Meltzer, women viewers were a big reason for the record setting drop.

To show where viewers left, women 18-49 dropped 31 percent from the first to third hour, men 18-49 dropped 15 percent, teenage girls dropped 63 percent, teenage boys actually increased ten percent, and over 50 dropped 18 percent. It is notable that during a hot basketball game, that it was women, by far, turning off Raw more than men, even though in the 18-49 demo, the basketball game had a 66-34 male skew.

[Big Vic]

They are gonna start getting murdered in the fall.

[Evil Vito]

One can only hope.

[slik]

SD did 1.93 million viewers this week, credit - showbuzz daily



Most watched on YT:

R-Truth inside box - 1.6 million
New Day vs KO/Sami/Dolph - 400k
New Day returns - 340k

[Fignuts]

Terrible show gets terrible rating.

News at 11

[#1-norm-fan]

“R-Truth inside a box” being 4 times more popular than any other segment on a WWE show sounds like the punchline of a lazy “lolWWE” joke.

[Mr. Nerfect]

People keep telling me that R-Truth is one of the most entertaining things on WWE TV right now, and I don't think they understand why that is a problem.

[Tom Guycott]

Seeing this thread title, I wanted to repost the out of context "Not a good night for Osprey's nuts" bit, but I can't seem to find the source to do so. So I guess I have to retire that joke.

[slik]

RAW ratings for 6.17.19


Hr 1 - 2.33
Hr 2 - 2.30
Hr 3 - 2.07

Avg - 2.23 million

credit - showbuzzdaily





Most Watched on YT:

Roman attacks Shane - 2.8 million
Seth vs DBry - 798k
R-Truth/Carmella in crowd - 784k

[Emperor Smeat]

Them only getting a little over 100k more viewers with the NBA Playoffs being over is somewhat bad.

Next week's post-PPV bump probably going to be a mix of the usual PPV bump and the remainder of viewers coming back from the playoffs.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I don't think there is going to be a bump after Stomping Grounds, of all things. Unless they do something completely wacky because they're cranky about the low attendance.

2.23 is a horrible number. I had 2.5 in my head as the lows Raw has fallen to, with 2.3 being terrible and 2.1 being scary. 2.2 is very close to the bottom falling out.

[slik]

SDLive ratings are in:


1.86 million viewers

credit - showbuzz daily




Most Watched on YT:

Drake Maverick wins 24/7 Title - 870K
Rtruth/Miz vs Drew/Elias - 448k
Alexa attacks Bayley - 370k

Note: Dolph's promo only has 84k views currently

[xrodmuc316]

I go back and forth on this all the time, but ratings are truly meaningless in the big picture. That is not just for WWE, but for any show. As long as advertisers are willing to buy time for said show, then the week to week ratings do not matter. Yes, there is a point where an advertiser would no longer want to buy time if they are looking at a lower rating, but if the show can get a different advertiser to buy that time, then it really doesn't matter.

Until advertisers start threatening to leave, I think WWE will continue to put out the same tired and lazy product.

I mean if you need any further proof, they haven't made any effort to write better TV even after the networks let them know they wanted better ratings. Sure WWE reacted with some heap ploys to bump the number like Roman on both shows or Brock teasing cash ins, but they haven't done anything to make better storylines, or even advance anything.

They are still rerunning the same Firefly Funhouse on Smackdown that already aired on Raw the night beofre.

They are still pushing the guy they blamed in storylines for the bad ratings be I in November.

They are still doing the authority stuff, only this time with Shane as the bad authority figure.

No new stars have been elevated. Nothing has changed in terms of their horrible timing of commercial breaks. Nothing has changed with their TV presentation of shaky cameras and 1000 different shot cuts. All the people they overlooked or booked badly are still stuck doing nothing.

It's all just been more of the same.

The ratings are down because the product is just filling up air time, but as long as WWE is still making advertisement dollars for filling that air time, then it is just a pointless number to WWE.

[Emperor Smeat]

I go back and forth on this all the time, but ratings are truly meaningless in the big picture. That is not just for WWE, but for any show. As long as advertisers are willing to buy time for said show, then the week to week ratings do not matter. Yes, there is a point where an advertiser would no longer want to buy time if they are looking at a lower rating, but if the show can get a different advertiser to buy that time, then it really doesn't matter.

Until advertisers start threatening to leave, I think WWE will continue to put out the same tired and lazy product ...

The ratings are down because the product is just filling up air time, but as long as WWE is still making advertisement dollars for filling that air time, then it is just a pointless number to WWE.

That's actually starting to become the case with advertisers no longer being happy with WWE's declining numbers. Its why WWE has been running more ads on RAW and Smackdown in recent weeks to keep USA Network and advertisers happy.

Even if they quickly replace lost advertisers, they will still lose a good chunk of ad money since those replacements very likely would be paying lower rates than the previous advertisers. Impact Wrestling found that out the hard way when they started bouncing around cable networks in recent years.

[Mr. Nerfect]

I go back and forth on this all the time, but ratings are truly meaningless in the big picture. That is not just for WWE, but for any show. As long as advertisers are willing to buy time for said show, then the week to week ratings do not matter. Yes, there is a point where an advertiser would no longer want to buy time if they are looking at a lower rating, but if the show can get a different advertiser to buy that time, then it really doesn't matter.

Until advertisers start threatening to leave, I think WWE will continue to put out the same tired and lazy product.

I mean if you need any further proof, they haven't made any effort to write better TV even after the networks let them know they wanted better ratings. Sure WWE reacted with some heap ploys to bump the number like Roman on both shows or Brock teasing cash ins, but they haven't done anything to make better storylines, or even advance anything.

They are still rerunning the same Firefly Funhouse on Smackdown that already aired on Raw the night beofre.

They are still pushing the guy they blamed in storylines for the bad ratings be I in November.

They are still doing the authority stuff, only this time with Shane as the bad authority figure.

No new stars have been elevated. Nothing has changed in terms of their horrible timing of commercial breaks. Nothing has changed with their TV presentation of shaky cameras and 1000 different shot cuts. All the people they overlooked or booked badly are still stuck doing nothing.

It's all just been more of the same.

The ratings are down because the product is just filling up air time, but as long as WWE is still making advertisement dollars for filling that air time, then it is just a pointless number to WWE.

Lol, you say that ratings don't matter, but then go on to explain why they do. TV stations are going to sell the advertising slots. Advertisers are only going to buy them if there are eyeballs watching.

The thing is: they have been trying to write better TV. The whole McMahons coming back thing was part of that. The wild card thing and the 24/7 are supposed to be wild and zaaaaany antics that make you tune in. This is what they think good storytelling is. They believe they are good. And this is why the ratings have been such a news item lately -- because everyone is starting to cotton on to the fact that they're not. There are much better things to watch and they cannot retain their own viewers, nor can they keep viewers at a consistent rate with the decline of cable.

[Ol Dirty Dastard]

XRod hitting us up with some dumbass XRod logic.

[xrodmuc316]

XRod hitting us up with some dumbass XRod logic.

What, that the product sucks and thus are getting low ratings, but that doesnt motivate WWE to try and do anything to be better, because ratings don't really matter.

They might throw a bandaid like the wildcard, but they haven't made any real effort to improve on any real long term level.

[slik]

WWE is all about band-aids these days rather than long-term innovation/reinvention

[Destor]

total views per year by network (total viewership, exclusive of demographics) per Neislon

CBS 2017: 7,996,000 2016: 8,814,000 2015: 9,419,000 2014: 9,375,000
NBC 2017: 7,284,000 2016: 8,426,000 2015: 7,757,000 2014: 8,264,000
ABC 2017: 5,592,000 2016: 6,325,000 2015: 6,894,000 2014: 6,838,000
FOX 2017: 4,733,000 2016: 5,053,000 2015: 5,198,000 2014: 5,973,000

[Mr. Nerfect]

What, that the product sucks and thus are getting low ratings, but that doesnt motivate WWE to try and do anything to be better, because ratings don't really matter.

They might throw a bandaid like the wildcard, but they haven't made any real effort to improve on any real long term level.

No one is arguing that things like the wild-card aren't band-aids. But that's what they've got. I mean, what do you mean "improve?" That's what their band-aids are there for.

[BigCrippyZ]

No one is arguing that things like the wild-card aren't band-aids. But that's what they've got. I mean, what do you mean "improve?" That's what their band-aids are there for.

Exactly. It's like being only treated for a superficial gash when you're also having a damn heart attack... and it's all because either the doctor is so inept they don't recognize the symptoms of the heart attack, or they do see the symptoms but they're so arrogant they believe they know better and that they don't need to to worry about or treat for the heart attack. They're still trying to improve the patient's health.

[xrodmuc316]

No one is arguing that things like the wild-card aren't band-aids. But that's what they've got. I mean, what do you mean "improve?" That's what their band-aids are there for.

Improve as in don't book the whole show as a holding pattern. It's why they can't sell tickets for Stomping Ground, because it's been the same show for almost 3 months, on Monday and on Tuesday, nothing has happened.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Yeah, but that's what they want to do. That's why they're doing it. They think that's good. I think you're working from an outcome to suggest that if they wanted to be good they would be. They want to be, they just aren't.

[Emperor Smeat]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's really not bad if you think about it. All of TV is down.<a href="https://t.co/QmXHo8EFTz">https://t.co/QmXHo8EFTz</a> <a href="https://t.co/dFRNkhg8t4">pic.twitter.com/dFRNkhg8t4</a></p>&mdash; Brandon Howard Thurston (@BrandonThurston) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1142111001837486082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Twitter thread goes into more of the other issues rotting WWE from within while the company (and part of the fanbase) keeps boasting about all the money they are generating today.

The Death of WCW book is an excellent reference when it comes to detailing how devastating WCW's crash was when it happened. WWE won't have one happen as quickly but they have similar issues within that will cause even more serious problems in the near future.

[xrodmuc316]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's really not bad if you think about it. All of TV is down.<a href="https://t.co/QmXHo8EFTz">https://t.co/QmXHo8EFTz</a> <a href="https://t.co/dFRNkhg8t4">pic.twitter.com/dFRNkhg8t4</a></p>&mdash; Brandon Howard Thurston (@BrandonThurston) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1142111001837486082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Twitter thread goes into more of the other issues rotting WWE from within while the company (and part of the fanbase) keeps boasting about all the money they are generating today.

The Death of WCW book is an excellent reference when it comes to detailing how devastating WCW's crash was when it happened. WWE won't have one happen as quickly but they have similar issues within that will cause even more serious problems in the near future.


Some of those numbers absolutely paint a different picture.

My question would be who is that gut, a financial adviser or just a wrestling fan.
WWE is going to be making tons of money for the foreseeable future, but that was already known.

They are basically where they were in 1994-1995-1996, where they have bottomed out creatively and almost went out of business.

The difference now is they don't have to worry about going out of business, because they are far too profitable despite themselves and the bad product they are currently putting out.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Until those revenue streams dry up. WCW thought they were going to be getting Uncle Ted’s money to play with forever and a day too.

[slik]

Ratings for RAW this week:


Hr 1 - 2.39
Hr 2 - 2.32
Hr 3 - 2.13

Avg - 2.28 million

credit - showbuzzdaily



Most Watched on YT:

Undertaker attacks Shane - 4.3 million
Seth/Becky/Corbin/Lacey - 1.7 million
R-Truth vs Drake Maverick - 1.6 million

[Emperor Smeat]

The PPV bump being that small is pretty bad. Still a big chunk of RAW's audience has yet to come back now 2 weeks into the end of the NBA playoffs and probably won't going by historical trends.

[Destor]

Nba finals down nearly 25% this year :eek:


https://adage.com/article/media/nba-finals-ratings-down-nearly-25-percent/2175311

[Destor]

2019 superbowl was th lowest rated in 11 years????


https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/05/super-bowl-draws-lowest-tv-audience-in-more-than-a-decade-nielsen.html

[Destor]

2018 world series down 23%




https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/world-series-ratings-2018-1202994171/

[Destor]

Its almost like tv is a dead medium.

[Destor]

Those YouTube numbers are gpod metrics. More of those

[Destor]

I do like how dip shit in that tweet compaired the wwe to entire networks thinking that made any sort of sense.

[Destor]

Lets say a show airs at 2am and draws a .012 and next year it still airs at 2a and still draws a .012. Well fuck thars a 100% retention rate.


Network is clearly killing it.

[Destor]

With facts like that he needs a blue check mark.

[Destor]

We need a better way to track viewership

[Destor]

Best we have right now is a failing relic from last millennia

[Destor]

CBS almost dropped Nielson in december (because it doesnt work anymore) but nielson caved on price. This trend will continue until eventually Neilson wont make enough to sustain itself. Its a ticking timbomb. 5 years tops. Whole thing will implode.

[Destor]

We're one half decent idea away from the entire ad industry turning on its ear

[Destor]

But im the mean time we'll update this thread twice a week a jerk each other off like any of these numbers have any meaning at all...i guess cause we're smarter than they are.

[#1-norm-fan]

I do like how dip shit in that tweet compaired the wwe to entire networks thinking that made any sort of sense.

total views per year by network (total viewership, exclusive of demographics) per Neislon

CBS 2017: 7,996,000 2016: 8,814,000 2015: 9,419,000 2014: 9,375,000
NBC 2017: 7,284,000 2016: 8,426,000 2015: 7,757,000 2014: 8,264,000
ABC 2017: 5,592,000 2016: 6,325,000 2015: 6,894,000 2014: 6,838,000
FOX 2017: 4,733,000 2016: 5,053,000 2015: 5,198,000 2014: 5,973,000

[Destor]

Where is the direct comparison to the WWE in those numbers?

[Destor]

now comparing raw numbers thats one thing, i didnt do that ftr just drawing a parallel between declining viewership being wide spread problem, but stats based off a 24 hour network vs a 3 hour show? Thats not how percentages work and its a radically different scenario for a statistical analysis comparison.

[Destor]

Very, VERY dishonest math manipulation there.

[Destor]

It would be just as dishonest as comparing NBCs total views to RAW numbers and saying the WWE is failing.

[Destor]

(Which despite that accusation I did not do)

[#1-norm-fan]

You posted network viewership numbers in a thread about WWE ratings while trying to defend WWE’s rating decline. Not gonna get into a whole wordplay discussion about what constitutes a comparison. Is it or is it not fair to bring up the viewership of an entire network when discussing the viewership of WWE? Or is your problem just that he introduced percentages into the mix?

[slik]

SDLive had 1.92 million viewers this week

credit - showbuzzdaily




Most watched on YT:

R-Truth/Drake Maverick - 2.1 million
Kofi vs Dolph - 460k
Nakamura confronts Finn Balor - 296k

[Emperor Smeat]

Found it interesting that Smackdown had the bigger PPV bump but its still a pretty tiny number compared to the usual 100k-200k range WWE gets for these bumps in recent years.

Stomping Grounds was a disaster in terms of driving interest for this week's set of shows.

[Destor]

You posted network viewership numbers in a thread about WWE ratings while trying to defend WWE’s rating decline. Not gonna get into a whole wordplay discussion about what constitutes a comparison. Is it or is it not fair to bring up the viewership of an entire network when discussing the viewership of WWE? Or is your problem just that he introduced percentages into the mix?

The problem is percents yes. Absolutely. Didnt realize that needed to pointed out. Thats creating lies through math. Its one of the first things you go over in statistical analysis courses. Its very easy to create very misleading comparisons using percentages (like that tweet did.) It pretends that the pie is equal when the pie is is literally 1/12th being weighed against 1 whole.

[Destor]

Alarmingly dishonest.

[slik]

Found it interesting that Smackdown had the bigger PPV bump but its still a pretty tiny number compared to the usual 100k-200k range WWE gets for these bumps in recent years.

Stomping Grounds was a disaster in terms of driving interest for this week's set of shows.


Next week Taker could cause a slight bump -- but one trend lately has been RAW doing decent YT views and SD's YT views dropping consistently (since the Wildcard Era and brand blue essentially becoming RAW 2.0).

I always wonder how the USA Network views the 24/7 Title situation since it was one of their ideas to counter ratings sliding - and it plays great on social media but hasn't really moved RAW up on TV.

[Destor]

If you ever see someone averaging percentages take a second to check their math they're most likely trying to pull a fast one.

[#1-norm-fan]

Alarmingly dishonest.

I’d say there’s some dishonesty in just showing the numbers and saying “down is down” and leaving it at that.

If someone took those networks, broke them down by every show, and then compared each individual show to WWE, would those be fair comparisons to you? It would eliminate the 24 hour vs 3 hour dilemma.

[Destor]

Lets say we did a survey on whether people like or do not like wrestling and the results are that 90% of children like wrestling however only 60% of adults like wrestling. So, can we claim that 75% of the population ( average = (90%+60%)/2 = 75% ) like wrestling?

This cannot be correct; we do not know anything about the sample size. Let's say there are 100,000 children and 400,000 adults surveyed. From those, 170,000 people do not like wrestling, while 330,000 like wrestling. Here, we can confirm that 90,000/100,000x100% = 90% of the children, and 240,000/400,000x100% = 60% of adults like wrestling.

So we are left with two answers. 66% (accurate calculation), and the 75% (inaccurate calculation). The averaging percentages can provide inaccurate results, and this is exactly what the tweet tries to do. Its awful math being masqueraded as a rebuttal when if you follow the math (and weight it against comparable data) it proves the opposite is true.

[#1-norm-fan]

Also, the World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Finals numbers you posted on the last page... pretty dishonest.

[Emperor Smeat]

Next week Taker could cause a slight bump -- but one trend lately has been RAW doing decent YT views and SD's YT views dropping consistently (since the Wildcard Era and brand blue essentially becoming RAW 2.0).

I always wonder how the USA Network views the 24/7 Title situation since it was one of their ideas to counter ratings sliding - and it plays great on social media but hasn't really moved RAW up on TV.

The Youtube stuff has been a pretty good indicator of revealing what's been interesting from WWE but somewhat useless for actual tv. The biggest problems being its way easier to digest clips that are a few minutes long than watch a whole 3-hour show live. Another big problem is the bulk of WWE's Youtube views typically come from India (and China) which is meaningless for tv since WWE can't transition it into additional viewers nor are they generating huge sums of money from those views.

USA Network probably views the 24/7 stuff as a success since it means one of their ideas actually works even if it supposedly was the "least bad one" given. WWE just needs to find a way to transition it into becoming additional tv viewers that stick around.

[Destor]

Also, the World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Finals numbers you posted on the last page... pretty dishonest.
Again not direct comparisons. Trends. Clear objectively verifiable trends. Major television staples are losing nearly 25% of their total audience year to year. With some rough math WWEs decline looks to be between 9-13% less than its key demo competitors but i havent (and dont even sort of have the time to) done anything exhaustive.


The problem is the data collection. Neilson is a dead metric. This is cavemen that havent discovered fire yet.

[Destor]

I really like youtube though as an analytic. If they would chop up entire shows and upload them in segements they would know exectly what was drawing eyeballs. I dont know how theyre using that tool but theres so much info YouTube offers them that advertisers would be very interested in.

[XL]

How are attendances at sports games tracking?

[#1-norm-fan]

Again not direct comparisons. Trends. Clear objectively verifiable trends. Major television staples are losing nearly 25% of their total audience year to year. With some rough math WWEs decline looks to be between 9-13% less than its key demo competitors but i havent (and dont even sort of have the time to) done anything exhaustive.

The dishonesty lies in pointing out one year and calling it a trend. We're also 4 years removed from the highest rated Super Bowl of all time. If I had pointed that out as a "trend" 4 years ago (clearly the decline of television started much more than 4 years ago) then I assume you would have called that ridiculous.

The 3rd highest rated NBA finals game of all time happened a year after that. If I'd pointed that out as a "trend" 3 years ago, then I assume you would have called that ridiculous.

The World Series... Well, yeah there's not much to say about that. People don't care about baseball like they used to.

Also, quit trying so hard to distance yourself from "direct comparison-making". You literally just compared the percent of WWE's decline to the percent of other major television staples. You're participating in the direct comparison making whether you deny it or not. lol

[RP]

The World Series is the 3rd most watched sporting even in the last 3 years only behind the Olympics and the Superbowl. Game 7 of the 2016 World Series was the most watched game in World Series history since 1991.

But Baseball World Series ratings have slipped since 1984. Spiked in 2016 because of the Cubs.

[Destor]

The dishonesty lies in pointing out one year and calling it a trend. We're also 4 years removed from the highest rated Super Bowl of all time. If I had pointed that out as a "trend" 4 years ago (clearly the decline of television started much more than 4 years ago) then I assume you would have called that ridiculous.

The 3rd highest rated NBA finals game of all time happened a year after that. If I'd pointed that out as a "trend" 3 years ago, then I assume you would have called that ridiculous.

The World Series... Well, yeah there's not much to say about that. People don't care about baseball like they used to.

Also, quit trying so hard to distance yourself from "direct comparison-making". You literally just compared the percent of WWE's decline to the percent of other major television staples. You're participating in the direct comparison making whether you deny it or not. lol
Not at all. The trend exists all over all of television. each network is down in annual views over a 5 year span. Its everywhere and the networks themselves, whi entire profit structure for 30+ years has been based off Neilson, are all acknowledging this. If you want to gloss over that so be it but when CBS drops neilson altogether because THATS how useless they view them you should take notice.


And I've objectively not directly compared them expect when i specifically directly compared and acknowledged that accordingly.


TV has no future and this is a mainstream concept wrestling fans are stubbornly refusing for some reason.

[Destor]

Its a broken metric. We dont know if viewership is down or not. technology has moved on and we havent updated our analytics. What i do know is the wwf is the 8th most subscribed YouTube channel. Thats real. Thats modern. Thats how most 15 and unders consume media. Not nielson boxes and watching usa.

[Destor]

Not a single viewing habit of mine is trackable by neilson analytics. The growing trend for 18-34s is to have never had cable. Even once. That trendis projected to be rule in the next 10 years.


How much of your viewing is trackable by Neilson. I bet very little. Why are you still following these numbers?

[Destor]

://variety.com/2019/digital/news/2019-cord-cutting-data-1203194387/


34% of US customers will cut the cord by the end of 2019. If you think this isnt where the viewership is going please offer the hot take. Im all ears.

[#1-norm-fan]

Not at all. The trend exists all over all of television. each network is down in annual views over a 5 year span. Its everywhere and the networks themselves, whi entire profit structure for 30+ years has been based off Neilson, are all acknowledging this. If you want to gloss over that so be it but when CBS drops neilson altogether because THATS how useless they view them you should take notice.


And I've objectively not directly compared them expect when i specifically directly compared and acknowledged that accordingly.


TV has no future and this is a mainstream concept wrestling fans are stubbornly refusing for some reason.

I’m not glossing over anything. I’m not even arguing TV being a dying medium. I’m saying your sports comparison is insanely dishonest. Not only for the reasons I mentioned but ALSO because comparing the ratings of a single game from one year to the next and calling it a “trend” to make the point that major television staples are down around 25% is a asinine.

You realize the NFL’s ratings in general were actually UP last year. Sunday Night Football’s ratings were UP last year. Monday Night Football’s ratings were UP last year. Now if I tried to say “The NFL’s ratings were up last year while WWE’s continued to drop”, Im guessing you’d object to the comparison. Yet you think it’s totally fine to look at the championship games from one year and use those numbers to say...

Major television staples are losing nearly 25% of their total audience year to year. With some rough math WWEs decline looks to be between 9-13% less than its key demo competitors

You see the issue here?

[Destor]

Clearly i needed to spell things out more clearly. Thats a failure in my part.


When i post those numbers what is in my head is are we panicking about the failing ratings? Theyre huge numbers. Do we think the nba is about to fold? No. We dont even notice. Why do we not notice when we can pull at near random any set.of numbers from tv and see declining ratings but when rae does literally the same thing at a reasonably similar pace we think abandon ship?


Shows flawed. Has huge problems. These numbers are fucking JANK THOUGH. This isnt abnormal. Why are we worshiping nielson? Its dead. These numbers dont tell us anyrhing anymore. Theuve basically become a lottery at this point.


Nfls digital streaming was up 86% last year. Viewers havent left. We just lost track of them.

[Destor]

Well tbf viewers might have left who fucking knows. Point is nielson isnt an indicator if they have or havent.

[Destor]

Other than "we always have" is there any reason we're still using this in 2019?

[Destor]

Ftr with the championship games i literally picked those at random. i knew nothing about their ratings this year. i knew what the data trand was and rolled the dice. Every search i made "just happened" to back my play. A stunning coincidence? Or predictable data acts predictably?


I bet if we made a game of it and put 50 current shows in a hat ans you got points when a shows viewership year to date wasnt shrinking the winning score wouldbe less than 10

[xrodmuc316]

The problem is the data collection. Neilson is a dead metric. This is cavemen that havent discovered fire yet.

Nelson ratings have always been a misrepresentation. It takes a very small percent of the audience, and then assume that the viewing pattern of that small sample size would equate exactly to the viewing habits of the entirety of the United States.

Nielson has roughly 40,000 households with boxes that monitor viewing habits. Nelson estimates there are 120 million households with tvs, and about 305 million people that watch tv.

They take those 40,000 houses, break it down to age groups and census data for the number of people living in the houses, then use whatever formula they use to determine how much each person in the household means to their rating, i.e. a house with 5 people will count as 5 viewers, since they can't actually say who in the house watched a specific show, then they multiply those numbers by a percentage to represent that 305 million, and that gives you a rating.

So when Nielson says a show gained or lost 200,000 viewers, it's probably about 30 people who watched one week but not another.

It is a very small sample size that networks base so much on.

It's why they have evolved to look at other factors.

It's why Fox's deal REALLY isn't as big as everybody makes it seem. They bought 520 hours of live tv for just over a $Billion. That is roughly $2 million per hour of TV.

That is rock bottom prices for a network show, let alone a live one which in this day and age is more desirable.

Fox will have no overhead with Smackdown, they will cut a $4million check every week for 2 hours of TV they don't have to worry about or put any real effort into.

[Destor]

Yeah thats what a survey is. Problem is now we're doing a survey with a dead medium.


Imagine tracking phone usage and only using landlines.


Would you use that information to determine phone habits of girls 10-24? Coursenot. Youd a fucking idiot to do so.


Why are we turning to neilson to tell us what men 18-34 are watching? How the fuck would they know?

[xrodmuc316]

Yeah thats what a survey is. Problem is now we're doing a survey with a dead medium.


Imagine tracking phone usage and only using landlines.


Would you use that information to determine phone habits of girls 10-24? Coursenot. Youd a fucking idiot to do so.


Why are we turning to neilson to tell us what men 18-34 are watching? How the fuck would they know?

100% this. I literally watch nothing but live tv, which is wrestling and sports. Everything else I watch on Netflix, Hulu, and Prime Video. Even the news, I'd rather just read it online than watch CNN or Fox News.

Earlier this week someone said the movie "This is the End" was on FX. I love that movie so I decided to watch it. Did I watch it on FX??? Hell no, I watched it from my Prime Video library, uncensored, no ads, streaming on a Roku.

Point is I still actually watched the movie even though IF I had a Nielson box it would have not have counted me in the rating FX got for showing the movie that night.

[Destor]

Exactly. And theres a huge ammount of people that are consuming media this way. Especially inside their key demos where id wager more are doing this than arent

When i think of the single 20-something males i know i cant think many that are watching cable. Addmitedly thats confirmation bias but i dont think if we increased the sample size that the trend wouldnt present itself.

Thats just how we do it now. We all do, dont we?

And if we all do then doesnt that force us to ask some serious questions about how seriously we value this data?

[Tom Guycott]

CBS almost dropped Nielson in december (because it doesnt work anymore) but nielson caved on price. This trend will continue until eventually Neilson wont make enough to sustain itself. Its a ticking timbomb. 5 years tops. Whole thing will implode.

"Surely, you can't be serious?"

[Tom Guycott]

If you ever see someone averaging percentages take a second to check their math they're most likely trying to pull a fast one.

Just add sixty-six and two-thirds <s>ch-</s> percents.

[Destor]

"Surely, you can't be serious?"
I am serious, and dont call me Shirley