Commercial Free WWE

[Mr. TM]

Commercials are the annoyance of television watchers world wide. If you all remember, WWE once had an episode of Raw that had no commercials.

Is this what the fans want? Are you sick of those annoying commercials (I streamed Raw from America, and it was filled with horrible commercials, at least in Canada, the commercials are filled with sports scores, being on a sports commercials.)

Now if you remember, the Raw was filled with advertisements, I remember there were some for KFC. It got pretty annoying. But why can't WWE do it more subtly? Terminator: Salvation on the wrestling mat, the announces booth having ads for Skittles. No more commercials, giving each episode a big time feel, but letting them watch for free.

Is this is a good idea like I think, or is this another one of TM's bad ideas?

 

[Dagger Dias]

The commercial free Raw was incredible. One of the best Raw's in recent memory, especially for a summer episode. It would be good to have more of these, but not permanently because not everyone can sit down for 2 hours without getting up to go grab a drink or check their email or (insert other random thing to do here).... know what I mean? I would be all for having a few commercial free episodes a year though, that would be great!

 

[gully side adidja]

yes we need commercial free wrestling nowadays, who the fuck wants to sit through 8, 5 minute commercials of the same advertisment, i mean one time they cut to a commercial,5 minutes later raw came back on, they had like a 2 minute segment with orton giving a speech about cena then after that they went to another 5 minute commercial!! what the fuck is that!!, no more commercial's please, holla.

 

[Rated619]

Commericials are fine with me.. as long as they aren't during a match. Usually, I shower during a commericial because I assume that the next thing they show will be some backstage promo and then a match. The best time to give a commericial is during the diva's matches. That way, it will give people more time to stretch during those pointless matches..

 

[gd]

First of all, the actualy commercial free Raw was rather shit. HHH v. Orton wasn't nearly as good as some people made it out to be.

Ideally, we'd never have to watch commercials and it'd just be 2 hours of wrestling. But that's not how things are. Every TV show has commercials, it's just a fact. I'm sure you could try to advertise during the show, but I doubt that makes up for all of the commercials that you're cutting.

Sure, I'd love to have commercial free Raw every week, but it simply isn't realistic to hope for that to happen

 

[XgringolocoX]

When do you run to take that quick piss? Refill your beer? Refill your crack pipe? No commercials are necessary, IMO. While that TV show might be free to us (aside from the cable bill) those commercials pay the bills. Also commercials give the person in your household who can't shut the fck up a few minutes to release so you can then watch the show in peace. Commercials also let me know about important products coming to market. I mean, how else are we to know that they now come with wings?

 

[The Best At What I Do]

lmao that crack pipe refill time is quite mandatory. But if my memory serves me correct, I remember despising that commercial-free RAW cuz they just kept talking about that bucket full of nasty ass looking kentucky grilled chicken on the announce table. "Mmmm mmmmm that chicken sho is good. I can't keep my hands off it!" Then why the hell is the bucket full to the f*ckin' rafters King!? You haven't touched the shit. It's clearly fried chicken with grill marks drawn on... Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yea, commercials are necessary if only for a break away from the horrid announcers.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

Commercials are the annoyance of television watchers world wide. If you all remember, WWE once had an episode of Raw that had no commercials.

Is this what the fans want? Are you sick of those annoying commercials (I streamed Raw from America, and it was filled with horrible commercials, at least in Canada, the commercials are filled with sports scores, being on a sports commercials.)

Now if you remember, the Raw was filled with advertisements, I remember there were some for KFC. It got pretty annoying. But why can't WWE do it more subtly? Terminator: Salvation on the wrestling mat, the announces booth having ads for Skittles. No more commercials, giving each episode a big time feel, but letting them watch for free.

Is this is a good idea like I think, or is this another one of TM's bad ideas?

TM, let's hear from you on this topic since you started the thread.

You know as well as everyone else that a show simply can not stay on the air without advertising revenue. So, they are a necessity, and I think most rational people know that. Obviously, there are a couple irrational people in this thread.

However, as far as sponsors go, do you really think it's feasible for WWE to find a sponsor for Raw each and every broadcast, such as what KFC did? Sure, it would be great, and likely result in them maintaining higher ratings, but don't you think if this was actually realistic, that WWE would have done this by now?

There is absolutely no way they are going to fine sponsors each and every week for Raw. I think Mr. McMahon (in semi-character) said it best to Donald Trump ... " ... but ... I would go bankrupt."

 

[Mr. TM]

Well I know little about marketing myself, so I am not sure. But there is large amounts of space for marketing in the WWE. I think they could have multiple sponsors on the show without commercials. The mat is a huge space that could have sponsor spaces. The entrance ramp could have ad spaces. The Titantron could, heck put "go daddy" on the trunks of the wrestlers. Like I said, I am not sure how much money this could make against the revenue generated from a commercial used Raw.

 

[MY NUTZ ON YOUR ACE]

Adverts are changing anyway you'll see more built into the show advertising, endorsements etc. and less advertising breaks because they are less annoying to the audience so they are more welcoming to the adverts. This been said WWE isn't going to set the trend in this by having commercial free progamming because they don't control which adverts are shown. The stations do. Unless the WWE has its own channel though there's always going to be ad breaks, the best fans can hope for is less frequent breaks

 

[Tastycles]

I think they could go with fewer, longer commercial breaks like they do on British syndication, but that doesn't really work in the American television market. Taking commercials out of the programme not only hurts the WWE, but also the USA Network, and it's highly unlikely they'd go for it. Adverts on the canvas make TNA look quite tacky, to be honest, but even if they were there on WWE, they would seriously struggle to go advert free. If an hour long drama that has all manner of oppurtunity for product placement can't do it, there's little hope for wrestling.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Well I know little about marketing myself, so I am not sure. But there is large amounts of space for marketing in the WWE. I think they could have multiple sponsors on the show without commercials. The mat is a huge space that could have sponsor spaces. The entrance ramp could have ad spaces. The Titantron could, heck put "go daddy" on the trunks of the wrestlers. Like I said, I am not sure how much money this could make against the revenue generated from a commercial used Raw.

I'm a marketing major, so I've actually studied stuff like this. Regular commercials are far more beneficial for both the WWE and the other companies than having brand names placed on the mat or on a wrestler's outfit. That would take away from the character and the WWE shows, and the one of the main points of Raw is to for WWE to convince people to buy their PPV's. Would you buy a PPV for a match you're not entirely familiar with because you were distracted the whole time by a huge advertisement placed on top of the mat itself, or on a title challenger's outfit? It's a bad idea and they should stick to airing regular commercials.

As for commercial-free Raw's.... I stand by my previous point, there should be more but they should not do it very often because then it has a better feel to it, like when they do 3 hour episodes.

 

[The Doctor]

I think a commercial-free RAW should be an annual special event. It was extremely entertaining when it happened this year, and it would be fun. Maybe once, every summer, they could try it out.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

I had a lengthy debate on this topic in the Debators league so I'll give a few of my points here as to why having Commerical Free WWE programming is bad for the WWE and business in general.

1) Advertisements = $$$$

The ads on WWE's programming generate money. Lots of money. Companies pay to advertise with their brand because the WWE's demographic is the most popular and populated. It makes NO sense to have no commercials to take advantage of those people watching.

2) The ads don't really matter

Even if the ads were prevalent on WWE shows, they come at opportune times for making something to eat, go to the bathroom, surf the net, have sex, etc. Ads serve numerous purposes besides just shilling a product. They can give the fans a break, too.

3) Running live with no breaks = poor quality programming

Imagine the WWE having to plan two hours shows with no commercials twice a week and PPV's? Talk about a headache. SO many things can go wrong with no commercials to go to when something possibly goes wrong. A catastrophic injury, a shoot gone wrong, or just technical difficulties can be averted by simply popping a commercial or two up when something goes wrong. It's better for 15,000 people to see it than 15,000,000. Think about it.

I think I summed it up pretty good.

 

[Theo Mays]

Commercials are necessary though they tend to get annoying. Commercial free shows are a good idea if they are limited. Maybe have a two or three commercial free shows a year. If you go with two, one during the beginning of the year (like before WM) and one in the summer (before Summerslam). And to fill the void of the commercials they can do the quick pitches with whatever product they wanna sell at the time. And to make up for the lack of commercials, throw in some three hour Raw episodes and get a little more commercials in then. Or have the commercial free Raw being all 3 brands and fill ECW or SD with some extra commercials.

 

[Spaceman Spif]

I had a lengthy debate on this topic in the Debators league so I'll give a few of my points here as to why having Commerical Free WWE programming is bad for the WWE and business in general.

1) Advertisements = $$$$

The ads on WWE's programming generate money. Lots of money. Companies pay to advertise with their brand because the WWE's demographic is the most popular and populated. It makes NO sense to have no commercials to take advantage of those people watching.

2) The ads don't really matter

Even if the ads were prevalent on WWE shows, they come at opportune times for making something to eat, go to the bathroom, surf the net, have sex, etc. Ads serve numerous purposes besides just shilling a product. They can give the fans a break, too.

3) Running live with no breaks = poor quality programming

Imagine the WWE having to plan two hours shows with no commercials twice a week and PPV's? Talk about a headache. SO many things can go wrong with no commercials to go to when something possibly goes wrong. A catastrophic injury, a shoot gone wrong, or just technical difficulties can be averted by simply popping a commercial or two up when something goes wrong. It's better for 15,000 people to see it than 15,000,000. Think about it.

I think I summed it up pretty good.

^This...

While as a few have said, it would be nice to have a commercial free Raw every so often, maybe a few times a year at the most, even that probably won't happen. Not much more I can say except that businesses like the WWE get a ton of money for selling commercial spots to companies trying to sell their products, so more commercials, more money, but I do agree that maybe a few less commercial breaks that are a bit better would be nice. However said breaks do give the crews time to make any changes they need to. So it all happens like it does for a reason, so it likely won't chage.