WWE News: Why Focusing on Ratings over PPV Buys Could Spell Certain Doom

You're supposed to learn from history, but WWE seems to be making too many familiar decisions.

PWInsider.com is reporting via a post I had on Wrestlezone.com:

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PWInsider.com is reporting WWE is focusing on TV ratings, and this is coming directly from Vince McMahon. WWE's primary goal is the various television projects they have going on and not pay-per-view buys.

The plan is to use the pay-per-view views to bring in more consistent viewers to the weekly television programs.

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You know who else did this?

WCW.

They were owned by a television media conglomerate, and the ratings were all they knew. They weren't wrestling people; they didn't understand you build to pay-per-views, where the true money is.

WCW didn't get it, WCW didn't deliver solid pay-per-view payoffs and WCW didn't survive. It isn't all attributed to emphasizing ratings over PPV buys, but it certainly affected the bank account in the long run.

WCW wasn't ran by wrestling people. But WWE is ran by a person who grew up in wrestling and tries to distance himself from all that the term “wrestling” represents.

This transition to ratings first is reportedly all coming from Vince McMahon. This is something I don't see someone like Triple H agreeing with.

Triple H is a wrestling guy. He is a wrestler, and he's proud of that. We've heard reports of Triple H slowly getting more control of projects in WWE and receiving high praise from many within. The best example were the positive words from WWE workers for how Triple H headed up the production of FCW and NXT tapings at Full Sail University a few weeks ago.

The only explanation I can come up with of why anybody other than Vince himself, or even Vince, for that matter, can look in the mirror and admit this is a wise decision is the WWE Network.

Pay-per-view buys overall have gone down. There are too many pay-per-views and not enough solid content. The WWE Network could change the WWE landscape in a major way. It is possible we could see many of the pay-per-views that aren't one of the big four—Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam or Survivor Series—aired strictly on the WWE Network.

This would mean you don't order via your pay-per-view provider, but, rather, you must have the WWE Network channel in your cable package. WWE has made statements to stockholders saying they're currently negotiating with different providers to figure out pricing and distribution specifics.

While WWE hasn't named companies, one would assume this means major television companies such as Comcast and DirecTV. So as of now, we don't know exactly how the WWE Network and its content will be structured.

If a majority of what are currently called pay-per-view events become exclusive WWE Network programming, the focus on ratings is more understandable. Events such as Over The Limit and No Way Out would be more like what Clash of the Champions was to WCW or Saturday Night's Main Event was to WWE.

They are specials airing on television every so many weeks, and the success of those “specials” would be measured via the rating system.

As it's been in the recent years with Raw and Smackdown, there's two hours of both shows with about 12 pay-per-views a year.

Fifty-two weeks in a year with four hours of television programming equals 208 hours in a year. Now, this doesn't factor in the occasional longer Raw special, but we'll use 208 hours as a rounded number.

Eleven pay-per-views at three hours with one WrestleMania, which is four hours, equals 37 hours of pay-per-view content a year.

You move to a calendar year and even with the adjustment of every Raw now being three hours, it significantly shifts how much more television programming there is over pay-per-view. Then, if we take away a bulk of the hours of what was pay-per-view and now they become specials on television, we're left with under 15 hours of actual pay-per-view content purchased at $60 (for HD).

Over a decade ago, the emphasis on ratings over buys for a wrestling company wasn't logical. WWE is, once again, changing the game, and the company is set to produce an unprecedented amount of fresh weekly live programming.

WWE could be setting themselves up for a massive failure by over-saturation of their product without enough solid content and stars.

One thing is for sure, though. This isn't the first time WWE has taken a risk in the effort of changing the model and way of thinking.

Vince has said in interviews in the past he believes in taking “calculated risks,” and this might be the biggest risk of all. Time shall tell how much accurate calculation has been done on the fourth floor of good old Titan Towers.

Follow @JustinLaBar