[Kane Knight]

Originally Posted by Noid One thing to take into account is the attention spans of children and youth. How long will it be before they turn on the TV, and choose not to watch RAW but Disney shit? Or decide to watch an R-rated movie, instead.

And, in fact, when Raw is put up against that kind of shit, it gets slaughtered by them.

I think it would be so much more effective if the WWE focused on the older demographic, and let kids fall into line. Kids found the WWE during the Attitude era, along with their parents, uncles and friends. Nowadays, it's a very isolated thing being a wrestling fan.

Well, depends on what you call older, but I mean, WWE even mentions on screen when it's number one in males 18-34. It's kind of funny that they keep pointing it out, but market to a much younger audience.

The problem with making a more adult product, is that parents might not want their kids watching it, but does any parent want their kid watching the current WWE, either? It's sexist, violent, insulting to the intelligence, and distracting now that it's got more time a week than ever.

Well, I mean, to an extent, there's already this issue (As you mentioned). I mean, I'd have a lot of trouble letting my kids watch the "Kiss My Ass Club," an incestuous couple (No offense to the awesomeness of Burchill or the Hotness of Katie), and so on. Not only that, but when I watched the first episodes of Raw and Smackdown! in HD, I noticed that both were showing adverts for Mass Effect (The game that's getting controversy for "virtual orgasmic rape") and several of the new R-Rated movies. I mean, these are the sort of advertisements I'd probably think twice before showing my hypothetical kids programming that ran with that shit between it. Granted, you can skip the ads, but if they're marketing to kids and then showing ads for adult-themed items, it is kind of worrisome.

And then there's the whole Chris Benoit thing, the current generation of "steroid" scandals, and so on. I'm not sure I'd like my kids cheering for Batista or Cena, given the bulked up physiques probably send the wrong messages in terms of steroids. I mean, I don't give a shit what a bunch of aging carnies do to look impressive, but it's not the sort of thing I really want my kids aspiring to. And to some extent, you can talk to them, but there's only so much you can do.

Fortunately, wrestling's not the "in" thing, so it's less likely that kids are feeling compelled to watch, and I do wonder how much wrestling merch is being sold to kids with little to no interest in wrestling itself.