KB Busts Up Another Myth: What Killed WCW

[klunderbunker]

Why would another network buy WCW when all the "big" names like Sting, Flair, and Hogan had guarenteed contracts. All you would be getting would be a bunch of jobbers and have to hope that after a year the "stars" would want to wrestle for WCW again.

Saying that the wrestling sucked is what caused WCW to end is just dumb. If that was the case then the WWF(E) would of folded years ago and according to Vince himself it almost did. The reason it didn't was it because of Vince not wanting to give in and he still had the backing of the network.

Even before the merger there were some higher ups in Turner that weren't too fond of wrestling and the merger sealed the deal when those idiots at AOL thought it would be better to get rid of wrestling that was still getting decent enough ratings and replace it will all day marathons of Dirty Dancing and other movies that have been seen hundreds of times and get .05 ratings.

Bischoff apparently thought enough to try to get on another network. he tried hard enough to at least. Also, the wrestling didn't just suck at the end. The stories sucked, the titles were worthless, no one went to the shows. Comparing it to WWE shows how little attention you're paying. Have people stopped coming to the shows? Have ratings been cut in half in a year? Have they bled money like WCW? No, which is partially the main differences.

 

[misterglover]

With all do respect to you KB, i think your full of $hit....your opinion is your opinion and your entitled to it but it is not based on fact. Being from NC i grew up on the NWA which became WCW and in the south there always would have been a fan base for the company...I will be the first to admit that when it closed the product was pretty bad but one mans shit is anothers man treasure and there are people out there that still would have watched the product because they are fans of wrestling. Being taken off TV killed WCW plan and simple. Did the mistakes the made creatively hurt them 1000% but the reason the company no longer exist is that it had no TV deal which made a company losing millions worth basically nothing.

 

[klunderbunker]

But it WAS all that mattered. Fuscient/Bischoff was buying everything. ALL of the talent contracts, the tape library and the entire infrastructure. TNT/TBS would air Nitro and Thunder, WCW would pay for itself and lose money on it's own. The money they had lost wouldn't matter anymore. They were willing to pay over 20 million dollars for WCW (still a bargain price) which included taking all the hefty talent contracts of Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Ric Flair, Sting and many of the other top talents that AOL/TW still had to pay for after WWE bought it.

So thus, all that mattered was the ratings and WCW was still delivering better ratings than any other show on TNT or TBS. Cancelling them made little sense.

And again......no.

The ratings had next to zero to do with it. The flare was gone, the money was going through the floor and THEN, yes after all that, you get to the ratings. If WCW was making money with a lower rating (like UFC does by comparison to TNA now) then it would have stayed on the air no questions asked. It's about making money. That's what a business is supposed to do. WCW didn't do that for a long time and they died, period.

 

[misterglover]

So KB you are completely gonna ignore the fact that it has been stated by everyone that the Kellner guy and the big wigs after the merger didnt like wrestling or feel like that it fit in with the type of audience they were now aiming for

 

[Brian in Austin]

Without shitty management, the WCW would have been thriving when AOL/TW picked up TNT. Methinks had WCW been doing well, AOL/TW would have sung a different tune regarding the WCW.

My point is this- Which came first: the Chicken or the Egg?

You can point your finger at both entities (WCW, AOL/TW) all you want, but you'd never win an argument for one without being honest with yourself regarding the other.

What's done is done.

Bottom line is if a product is profitable, it's foolish to discard it. WCW obviously wasn't profitable. No matter. It's gone and now the ahem, people who were most visible there are now in TNA and now THEIR ratings aren't improving. Once is a coincidence, twice is a trend.

 

[klunderbunker]

Thunder was created because Ted Turner wanted it done. I think that it's in Bischoff's memoirs and why they went to three hours on Nitro, to get additional advertising money to fund it.

Anyway, klunder, I'm also one to disagree with your opinion. While WCW was near-crap at the end of it's run, it still had decent ratings, which is what the television network would care about, not house-shows or PPV buy-rates (which were dismal since 2000 if I remember correctly). Add to that the fact that WCW was undersold and Kellner's known opinions on wrestling programming (among the other stupid shit he's said and done), I can't accept your "myth-busting'.

As to why no other network picked it up, I'm pretty sure you can't just pick up programs in the middle of television seasons. If I'm wrong, someone can feel free to correct me on it.

Come on dude you're smarter than this. AOL/Time Warner owned the company AND the TV stations. Both PPV buys and attendance made money along with the ratings. No one was going to the shows, the ratings and therefore ad money went through the floor, the money was still bleeding away. All of that can be attributed to the product sucking from about 1999 on. The network put it out of it's misery.

As for a new network, if the company it was on didn't want it and got rid of it, it can happen. It's a weekly show, not seasonal.

 

[klunderbunker]

So KB you are completely gonna ignore the fact that it has been stated by everyone that the Kellner guy and the big wigs after the merger didnt like wrestling or feel like that it fit in with the type of audience they were now aiming for

For the love of cheese does no one read or actually think anymore?

"I'm Jamie Kellner. I successfully made FOX into a huge network and made millions of dollars there. I'm now in charge of AOL/Time Warner and TNT/TBS. Let's see what airs here. Oh this wrestling has to go. I have no idea if it's making money or not, nor do I know what it used to do or what it's done in the past few years. It's wrestling so it's gone and I don't care what kind of business it's doing."

That's what you're saying AOL/TW said. It didn't matter about if WCW made money or not. It just had to go because it was wrestling. Do you see how absurd that sounds?

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

Didn't Eric Bischoff's book "Controversy Create Cash" basically states that the board members from Aol Time Warner hated wrestling? I hope you're not just stating bull shit to state bull shit. Where do you come up with all of these figures? I want to see your sources first, so that I can even believe anything you say. Until you show me your sources, I can't believe you. Especially when Bischoff states in his book that Aol Time Warner was basically the killer of WCW.

I do agree with you on one thing, Thunder was a piece of shit. Eric Bischoff also stated that in his book as well and it should have never been done.

Listen to this guy. I don't even know why this thread was created. Eric Bischoff, a person intimately involved with WCW from its rise to ratings dominance to its fall from grace, wrote an entire book supporting the thesis that you're now trying to disprove with nothing more than conjecture. When you can cite passages from Controversy Creates Cash and bring, at the very least, doubt upon them with hard evidence, then your claim can be taken seriously.

 

[klunderbunker]

I think you are missing the point. AOL/TW was selling WCW to Fuscient Media ventures. Whether the company made money was no longer a problem. Under the deal they were finalizing, AOL/TW would no longer being paying for WCW. Thus, they would get the programming of Nitro/Thunder, but they would no longer have to pay for it. WCW losing money is why they were selling it, not why it was cancelled. Two different things.

And why were they losing money and the ratings dropping? Because the product was falling apart. If the product didn't absolutely suck at the end, the ratings would have been more competitive (or competitive at all) with WWF, they wouldn't have lost so much money and people would have still gone to see them. If that had been the case, they probably wouldn't have gotten cancelled. Again, you don't see Pawn Stars or whatever the top show in the country is being thrown off the air and the rights sold do you? Of course not, because that makes no sense. Once the ratings decline, then it'll get cancelled, just like WCW. The merger was ending what had been built up for a long time.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

And again......no.

The ratings had next to zero to do with it. The flare was gone, the money was going through the floor and THEN, yes after all that, you get to the ratings. If WCW was making money with a lower rating (like UFC does by comparison to TNA now) then it would have stayed on the air no questions asked. It's about making money. That's what a business is supposed to do. WCW didn't do that for a long time and they died, period.

KB, I am not going to knock your feelings on what killed WCW and yes I knew they where losing record amounts of money. WCW had definitely lost its appeal and no other networks were going to host their programming, however with the company sold to Fusient and the plan to keep AOL-TW as a minority owner who would keep the programming on TBS was the initial plan. This information confirms that will be listed below confirms that. As far as ratings go, yeah a lot of WCW's ratings took a huge nosedive, but with the exception of a couple of 1.8 viewership ratings in 2000, a lot of WCW's numbers then have nipped at the heels of a lot of WWE's ratings over the past couple of years, and yet so many people feel the need to tout that WWE is setting huge numbers these days.

AOL-TW would have had nothing to lose had they sold to Fusient, the ratings were still good and they would no longer have the operational costs of running WCW as the majority owners. I heard another rumor at one time that Vince wanted to run WCW as a separate company but his Viacom TV deal did not allow that, who really knows. Vince might have just been saying that for the sake of it.

There's no doubt that WCW was majorly devalued however it's in my opinion that based on the fact that WCW was initially sold to Fusient PRIOR to the WWF deal, that there was still a chance the company could have continued had the original sale gone through. Maybe at some point they still would have gone under, I can't say for sure, but the fact that the New York Times reported that WCW was being taken off Turner networks and that the original sale of WCW to Fusient went kaput leads me to believe this.

PLEASE NOTE: This information PREDATES Controversy Creates Cash by several years, and I have never read the book either, so I don't need Eric Bischoff's word to base what I feel hindered WCW's future.

Canoe Wrestling Covers WCW Sale to Fusient

WCW Fusient Media Press Release

WCW Nitro Ratings History

Jamie Kellner Drops WCW from programming at Turner - From New York Times

 

[Blueshirt]

This may truly be the most circular argument I've ever witnessed (read?). Unfortunately every person in this forum could read as many insider books possible and try to put our own two cents into what happened, but the fact is no one will completely know what occurred in the various board rooms and shareholder meetings.

The KB camp is right because better product leads to better ratings (in most cases, but as television shows us, this is not always the case) which leads to better ad revenue and in the case of a publicly traded company, a larger shareholder derivative. However, those on the The Network Killed the Product are also correct. A network can choose to keep a product on the air at their whim. The CEO/President/Chairman of a company as long as he has the backing of the shareholders can do whatever he wants. However, a product that actually creates revenue is more likely to be kept on the air.

So, there you go, you are all right! Yay.

 

[klunderbunker]

KB, I am not going to knock your feelings on what killed WCW and yes I knew they where losing record amounts of money. WCW had definitely lost its appeal and no other networks were going to host their programming, however with the company sold to Fusient and the plan to keep AOL-TW as a minority owner who would keep the programming on TBS was the initial plan. This information confirms that will be listed below confirms that.

AOL-TW would have had nothing to lose had they sold to Fusient, the ratings were still good and they would no longer have the operational costs of running WCW as the majority owners. I heard another rumor at one time that Vince wanted to run WCW as a separate company but his Viacom TV deal did not allow that, who really knows. Vince might have just been saying that for the sake of it.

There's no doubt that WCW was majorly devalued however it's in my opinion that based on the fact that WCW was initially sold to Fusient PRIOR to the WWF deal, that there was still a chance the company could have continued had the original sale gone through. Maybe at some point they still would have gone under, I can't say for sure, but the fact that the New York Times reported that WCW was being taken off Turner networks and that the original sale of WCW to Fusient went kaput leads me to believe this.

PLEASE NOTE: This information PREDATES Controversy Creates Cash by several years, and I have never read the book either, so I don't need Eric Bischoff's word to base what I feel hindered WCW's future.

Canoe Wrestling Covers WCW Sale to Fusient

WCW Fusient Media Press Release

WCW Nitro Ratings History - (Again I know WCW had some really lame storylines and not everything Hogan did was gold, but still WCW still had viewership even if it wasn't record setting.)

Jamie Kellner Drops WCW from programming at Turner - From New York Times

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here.

WCW could have continued maybe for a little while if they had sold to Fusient, but at the same time it would have been just that: a short itme. Can you honestly picture WCW continuing through say 2004? My point in general is that the company was already dead when the plug got pulled. There seems to be this theory that WCW was alive and well when Kellner cancelled the shows and point blank it wasn't. That's what I'm trying to get through people's heads. Not actually sure what you're trying to say with this though (not sarcasm.)

 

[MrHashasheen]

Come on dude you're smarter than this. AOL/Time Warner owned the company AND the TV stations. Both PPV buys and attendance made money along with the ratings. No one was going to the shows, the ratings and therefore ad money went through the floor, the money was still bleeding away. All of that can be attributed to the product sucking from about 1999 on. The network put it out of it's misery.

True, I hadn't thought of it like that.

As for a new network, if the company it was on didn't want it and got rid of it, it can happen. It's a weekly show, not seasonal.

... So weekly television shows can just get signed on whenever and replace other programming?

 

[misterglover]

KB is the perfect example of what is wrong with wrestling in general to old school fans like myself...some nerd that sit behinds a computer & keyboard and pretends that he knows everything and wants to present it as fact.... I have no problem w/ your opinion KB because i have my own and obviously they differ but you created a whole thread and act like it nothing but fact....

 

[klunderbunker]

True, I hadn't thought of it like that.


... So weekly television shows can just get signed on whenever and replace other programming?

They would have to be released from their contracts I'd assume. Scrubs was canceled by NBC and ABC picked it up for a year recently. Same basic idea.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here.

WCW could have continued maybe for a little while if they had sold to Fusient, but at the same time it would have been just that: a short itme. Can you honestly picture WCW continuing through say 2004? My point in general is that the company was already dead when the plug got pulled. There seems to be this theory that WCW was alive and well when Kellner cancelled the shows and point blank it wasn't. That's what I'm trying to get through people's heads. Not actually sure what you're trying to say with this though (not sarcasm.)

Honestly, I can't tell you if WCW would have lasted into 2004, if everything that was said was true about their revenue losses being in record numbers, it definitely doesn't sound good.

However, considering that people were still watching WCW, TBS/TNT could have reaped the benefits of having viewers still without having to have the financial burden that controlling interest in the company would have entailed.

So basically my feeling is that I think WCW could have possibly still existed had the original sale gone through with Fusient and Jamie Kellner had not cancelled WCW's programming. I can't say for sure but I would be willing to venture a guess and say it's possible. Even if the company had to downsize itself and resemble a product more akin to the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling days when the Crockett Family owned the organization, I still think there could have been a chance for WCW to continue. Again I can't guarantee that, but it's the feeling I have based on what I've read about the situation.

 

[X]

Listen to this guy. I don't even know why this thread was created. Eric Bischoff, a person intimately involved with WCW from its rise to ratings dominance to its fall from grace, wrote an entire book supporting the thesis that you're now trying to disprove with nothing more than conjecture. When you can cite passages from Controversy Creates Cash and bring, at the very least, doubt upon them with hard evidence, then your claim can be taken seriously.

...Except Bischoff wasn't even there for a large portion of the last 18 months of their existence as a company, as he had been fired. And Bischoff is HARDLY the person you want to put your trust into in giving a fair portrayal of the rise and fall of WCW. This would be like listening to Bernie Madoff's version of events for his ponzie scheme. Not exactly reliable testimony when you're largely responsible for the demise of the company in question.

Regardless of whether AOL/Time Warner wanted wrestling or not, they would not have gotten rid of WCW if it was making them a large profit. No fucking way would they have. What led to WCW losing so much money though? It's booking. So it's pretty clear that their booking is what led to their demise here, because if it was better and they had managed to retain their fanbase instead of losing them in droves to the competition, they would NOT have had the plug pulled on them by AOL/Time Warner. Like wrestling or not, they sure as fuck were not going to pull the plug if WCW was making them millions in profit. Pretty simple train of thought here, no?

 

[kor420]

I Loved WCW back in the day, but towards the end, it suck. It was like your dog getting shot and watching him bleed uncontrollably and clawing to hang onto life, it made you feel like you wanted to take old' yeller out back and putting him out of his misery. Till this day, i still miss WCW.

 

[Tripleb2k1]

here's what I feel are what helped kill it:
01) Finger Poke Of Doom
02) Bischoff's Arrogance
03) Russo & Ferrara's Arrogance
04) Turner & Time Warner Merger
05) AOL & Time Warner Merger
06) nWo fills with Jobbers
07) Goldberg Heel turn
08) David Arquette as World Champion
09) Vince Russo as World Champion
10) Ed Ferrara as Oklohoma (Jim Ross Mockery)
11) AOL/Time Warner Management thinking they know how to run a wrestling company
12) Viagra On A Pole Match
13) "Who's Stacy Keibler's Baby's Daddy" storyline
14) Burying Ric Flair In The Desert

I never listed losing the TV time because it was pretty much dead by then

 

[klunderbunker]

Honestly, I can't tell you if WCW would have lasted into 2004, if everything that was said was true about their revenue losses being in record numbers, it definitely doesn't sound good.

However, considering that people were still watching WCW, TBS/TNT could have reaped the benefits of having viewers still without having to have the financial burden that controlling interest in the company would have entailed.

So basically my feeling is that I think WCW could have possibly still existed had the original sale gone through with Fusient and Jamie Kellner had not cancelled WCW's programming. I can't say for sure but I would be willing to venture a guess and say it's possible. Even if the company had to downsize itself and resemble a product more akin to the Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling days when the Crockett Family owned the organization, I still think there could have been a chance for WCW to continue. Again I can't guarantee that, but it's the feeling I have based on what I've read about the situation.

Well first of all, here's a source (New York Daily News) that backs up their losses.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2000-10-07/sports/18151853_1_wcw-eric-bischoff-vince-russo

Based on those kind of losses and the big contracts that were guaranteed and the lack of business that they had after all of their mistakes in the previous two years, I reall don't think it was going to be able to do anything, TV or no TV.

 

[misterglover]

They would have to be released from their contracts I'd assume. Scrubs was canceled by NBC and ABC picked it up for a year recently. Same basic idea.

But see this is the problem...in theory this is true but what made the purchase of WCW worthwhile to anyone not named McMahon for the video library was that you were getting the company, also thinking that included the time slots that it had on that station forever. NWA/WCW was always apart of Ted Turner's station and it can be argued that it is wrestling that helped make that station. No one knew the company was gonna lose the time slots, now if you are interested in buying you have to purchase the company which means taking on all the money that it was losing at the time as well as now having to shop for a new TV deal and sponsors.....And KB since you are the almighty know it all you should atleast acknowledge that most networks arent exactly looking for a wrestling show, hence TNA's early struggles to get a tv deal, ROH and other wanna be's struggle to land a TV and even WWE's recent shuffling of Smackdown to a network truly interested in the product if ratings arent what want them to be.

 

[MB1025]

The changes in the business, from Turner to Time Warner to AOL Time Warner doomed WCW, despite the need for programming. The major move was AOL Time Warner's decision to merge the company's channels -- TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, the Cartoon Network and all of the CNN networks -- into the WB network.

It was Jamie Kellner who actually made the decision to pull the plug from WCW's life support machine, cancelling programming on both TNT and TBS. Kellner was in control of the new WB network of stations, and didn't think that WCW fit in with the new image of the company.

Also Fusient Media Ventures had Fox and NBC on the table for a TV spot for WCW. Once Jamie Kellner kept Bischoff and Fusient Media Ventures in the dark for about 3 weeks NBC and Fox backed out.

People are acting like this is the only time WCW had lost a lot of money. before Eric Bischoff they had much lower ratings and never turned a profit. However as soon as the merger happens standard and practices steps in and tries to change the format of the show to a more family friendly show. Why? because it ties in with the approach the company was taking. hence Kellner was in control of the new WB network of stations, and didn't think that WCW fit in with the new image of the company. The standards and practices part is from

Vince Russo
Ed Ferrara
Kevin Sullivan
Eric Bischoff

All in different interviews. But I am sure that is people who "failed" trying to cover up their mess like KB and others have suggested.

After the AOl/Timer Warner merger not just WCW was sold. So was the Hawks, Thrashers, and Braves. Why? Because AOl was in debt. Not the companies, but AOL.

January 29, 2003

ATLANTA -- Ted Turner was a giant figure on the Atlanta sports scene.

He purchased the Braves and turned them into a key programming tool on his fledgling Superstation. Now, the stadium where they play bears his name.

The Hawks were on the verge of leaving town when Turner stepped in, buying the moribund NBA franchise. Finally, he led the drive to bring the NHL back to Atlanta, even coming up with the Thrashers nickname as a tribute to the Georgia state bird.

Naturally, Turner's surprise announcement Wednesday that he is retiring as AOL Time Warner's vice chairman prompted speculation about the future of the company's three sports teams.

Will AOL Time Warner, which just reported a staggering fourth-quarter loss of $44.9 billion, be more willing to dump its Atlanta sports teams with Turner out of the way?

In particular, analysts have speculated that AOL Time Warner will be looking to raise cash by selling the Braves, who have won 11 straight division titles but are plagued by declining attendance. Forbes magazine estimated two years ago that the team was worth $407 million.

Stan Kasten, who is president of the Braves, Hawks and Thrashers, was stunned by the news that the 64-year-old Turner was stepping down to spend more time on his philanthropic endeavors.

"There's nothing I can say about his new role or relationship because I simply don't know," Kasten said in a telephone interview from his home Wednesday evening. "I just found out an hour ago. All of us in Atlanta just found out."

Turner's role with the teams began to diminish after he sold the media company bearing his name to Time Warner in 1996. Time Warner went on to merge with AOL, further reducing Turner's influence.

Although the Braves named their stadium after Turner in 1997, they removed his biography from their media guide after the merger with AOL.

Still, while Turner rarely attended games in recent years, he continued to wield enormous influence over his hometown teams.

"Every one of us who worked for the teams always felt near and dear to Ted," Kasten said. "When he's around, no matter what his role is, we always ask him to come in and talk to the guys with all three teams.

"Those performances -- and with Ted, it always feels like one -- just amuse the hell out of the players, and he enjoys it, too."

Kasten said he doesn't know if Turner's resignation will have any impact on the Braves, Hawks or Thrashers. Kasten said there are still plenty of key questions that haven't been answered: Will Turner remain on the AOL board? Will he reduce his 3.5-percent stake in the company after growing increasingly frustrated at its direction of the company?

"I don't know anything about anything right now," Kasten said. "Give me a day or two."

Kasten wouldn't discuss a possible sale of the teams.

"Anything having to do with the word 'sell,' I send that right to corporate," he said. "I stopped dancing on the head of that pin a long time ago."

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

So it looks like all these sales had more to do with AOL's finacial trouble then anything. Then in 2008 Time Warner and AOL split because AOL had been a sinking ship from the start.

OL resumed life as an independent Internet company Thursday as it completed its spinoff from Time Warner Inc. and closed the book on one of the most disastrous business combinations in history.

AOL shares fell 59 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $23.08 in midday trading.

Today's AOL is much different from the company once known as America Online, which got big in the 1990s by selling dial-up Internet access and then used $147 billion of its inflated stock to buy Time Warner. AOL, which is now worth about $2 billion, is trying to get most of its money from running advertisements on its portfolio of Web sites.

Those sites include the AOL.com home pages, Mapquest and tech blog Engadget. AOL isn't keeping the entertainment site TMZ, which is staying in Time Warner.

When AOL bought Time Warner in 2001, the companies bet that Time Warner's TV and magazine content would complement AOL's Internet business.

Related Links
AOL to Cut 2,300 Workers in Planned Break From Time Warner

Instead, broadband Internet connections began to kill off AOL's main source of revenue and drag down the whole company.

The company was once known as AOL Time Warner but dropped AOL from the name in 2003. That was a sign of what was to come: Time Warner announced AOL's spinoff last May after years of trying to integrate the two companies.

In a note to clients, BMO Capital Markets analyst Jeffrey Logsdon called the failed deal "a nine-year adventure akin to a marathon through the mud."

The new AOL has no debt. The company is profitable, though its operating income dropped 50 percent to $134 million in the third quarter from the same period a year earlier. Third-quarter revenue dropped 23 percent from last year to $777 million.

In the past year, AOL hired Tim Armstrong, 38, a former Google advertising executive, as CEO. Armstrong plans to cut up to 2,500 jobs, or more than a third of AOL's employees, on top of thousands of other cuts in recent years. That will leave the company at less than a quarter the size it was at its peak in 2004.

The company plans to fill many of its Web sites with inexpensive material produced by freelancers paid by the post. This week it said it had hired New York Times reporter Saul Hansell to oversee part of that content-generation effort.

 

[Brian in Austin]

So what the defenders of Bischoff are saying here is that WCW was alive, well, and making a profit for a publicly traded company when they got the axe?

Okay. So what?

Are the ratings in TNA going up, down, or staying flat?

 

[klunderbunker]

But see this is the problem...in theory this is true but what made the purchase of WCW worthwhile to anyone not named McMahon for the video library was that you were getting the company, also thinking that included the time slots that it had on that station forever. NWA/WCW was always apart of Ted Turner's station and it can be argued that it is wrestling that helped make that station. No one knew the company was gonna lose the time slots, now if you are interested in buying you have to purchase the company which means taking on all the money that it was losing at the time as well as now having to shop for a new TV deal and sponsors.....And KB since you are the almighty know it all you should atleast acknowledge that most networks arent exactly looking for a wrestling show, hence TNA's early struggles to get a tv deal, ROH and other wanna be's struggle to land a TV and even WWE's recent shuffling of Smackdown to a network truly interested in the product if ratings arent what want them to be.

This right here proves my entire point: those companies were brand new other than Smackdown, which is the B show of WWE. This wasn't some brand new company. This was WCW, the company that 3 years ago was reigning on high as the kings of wrestling (which was on fire in 2001 with WWE making record profits the year before and going public so it's not like the market wasn't there), not some brand new startup company. Even ECW was able to get a TV deal, but not WCW. If a show is going to be making money and drawing in viewers, you would want it on your network. That's basic business sense. In September of 2000 TNN (now Spike) acquired WWF programing. They were in the market for it apparently. WCW however, wasn't wanted anywhere. Today a 1.8 is considered solid for Smackdown. Do you really think that a company wouldn't have wanted a company like WCW on if it was going to bring in even say a 1.5? The fact that no one else wanted it on their TV says a lot.

 

[Nate DaMac]

I don't get what the fight is about. Are there really people who think WCW was cancelled just because TW didn't want wrestling? Okay, let me try to put in perspective here.

Fox is a very large corporation. They own 2 very large channels, one being Fox and the other being Fox News. (I'm speaking in general terms here, not trying to explain the logistics of networking broadcasting as I know little about it.) The Fox company is widely known to be a Right Wing/Conservative leaning company, as evident by employing folks like Bill O' Reilly and Glenn Beck. That same company also airs the show Family Guy, one of the most Liberal, Conservative bashing shows on television. Now, why do you think Fox continues to air a show that bashes it's political interests as well as the network itself? Could it be because *gasp* it makes them a shit ton of money by being one of the highest rated shows on the network? Quite likely, I must say. If Family Guy obtained shit ratings, they would pull the plug with neck breaking speed.

Now see how this relates? Management wouldn't pull a show just because it doesn't suit their own personal tastes. If WCW was still making them an ass ton of money like it had been before, they would have let it be. But since WCW was a financial disaster, they pulled the plug. Whether or not they did it with glee is uncertain, but their motives seem pretty clear to me.