Ratings Thread

[Triple A]

He's saying he thought it was weird because when the overnight SmackDown number came out (2.15m), he said that the final number is going to probably drop when it figures in the news coverage. Then the "final" number came out and it was initially listed as more than the overnight number, that's why he "thought it was weird"... When it was corrected, his prediction that it would drop was right

Calm down man...

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Triple A He's saying he thought it was weird because when the overnight SmackDown number came out (2.15m), he said that the final number is going to probably drop when it figures in the news coverage. Then the "final" number came out and it was initially listed as more than the overnight number, that's why he "thought it was weird"... When it was corrected, his prediction that it would drop was right Calm down man...

That makes a little more sense if the number grew crazily. But to look at a number and think it looks weird when it's off by 100k at that size is just Dave being a douche on Twitter and doing the whole "AEW = good/WWE = bad" thing.

What's wrong with saying "2.15 million to 2.07 million," or whatever the number is, "not much of a drop"?

Smeat, I'm not blaming you for what Dave said, lol. It's just the bullshit sentiment that he's anything other than completely biased one way at this point. Not so much all the news he gets -- I'm absolutely not echoing the line that he's always just guessed and whatever -- but anything as it pertains to AEW/WWE he's just waaaaaay off on all the time, and that extends to his commentary on the ratings.

SmackDown kills it in the "key demo" every week. I personally think that's an antiquated way to look at television in 2020, since TV audiences are no doubt going to skewer older and there are way more effective ways to market to younger people (react videos on YouTube). But they're an antiquated as advertisers want them to be. But that key demo is never talked about. Nor is Raw's, which absolutely slaughters AEW's on basic cable. Nah, that ruins the narrative that WWE's audience is a bunch of old fogies and AEW's got the cool, hip crowd -- which they just don't. They only beat NXT in that demo because, and I guarantee this, the younger audience either DVRs or Network watches it, because that's just easier when they're doing the whole "support the new guys" thing. If you got those numbers, I bet you'd find there isn't much a difference between the people who watch AEW and the people who watch NXT. But that doesn't suit the Meltzer agenda, which is to help get his newsletter over by appealing to the hardcore fans, and by making the promotion run by a guy who has admitted to reading him look more competent and deliberate than it is. And because he likes them.

People are going to be biased. Even Meltzer. He really doesn't have any obligation not to be. He's forced himself to watch boring, bland, shit WWE for hours and hours each week long after most of us have given up. Of course he's going to like the wrestling equivalent to a cat shitting on a toilet. But it would just be nice if people would -- not "call it out," per se -- but acknowledged it.

* Vince McMahon didn't get involved in NXT.

* WWE didn't try to completely steamroll AEW. They slowed it down and are waiting it out.

* $45 million would have covered production costs for a show in 2016. AEW says their shows are cheaper, but there's something fishy going on there when they had that production deal and it suddenly gets "increased" to $45 million, per Dave's reporting on it.

* WWE are idiots when they don't promote NXT that heavily on their main roster so as to not go for broke right out the gate. This is all the while they are definitely, completely going for broke out the gate, but rushing programs like Adam Cole vs. Tommaso Ciampa, which finally led to a match between the two, what, four months after NXT started on USA?

* They were definitely trying to get the jump on AEW by starting earlier on USA. It couldn't just be that they wanted to piggy-back off the final episodes of Suits and debut programming unopposed to anything else in the genre in order to promote their scope to networks when they inevitably decide they want a new show another $100 million per year or so. Nope. Definitely thought that no one would watch a brand new wrestling promotion on TNT outside their umbrella hard over those first months.

I get it's fun to call the WWE idiots and think of them as the evil empire. A lot of the shit they do is completely evil. But there's this false level of incompetence assigned to a promotion that has set itself up to generate over $500 million in revenue every year, all designed to make Vince McMahon a billionaire. No one really gives a shit if Tony Khan gets to send $2.5 million back to his dad every year because TNT rounded up production costs. Yet we have to put up with Dave saying "I'm not saying they're winning, but they've won." Come off it.