Yahoo's Research - How does WWE use their time?

[Hard Hit Prince]

Since RAW went to 3-hours that a lot of fans have been complaining on how WWE uses the extra time and how the shows seem to be more difficult to watch and what not, so I found this great article by Patrick Michael of Yahoo! and thought you guys would enjoy reading it.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from a lot of professional wrestling fans is that there is not enough wrestling on today's WWE programming.

In particular, WWE Raw, which now airs for just over three hours each Monday night, receives the brunt of these complaints. On wrestling articles and in online forums, I have seen many WWE fans comment that there are 15 minutes of actual wrestling on the three hours of Raw. Of course, this claim about a three-hour wrestling show seems preposterous, so I decided to undertake a research study to test the validity of this myth.

Research parameters

I recorded the first three October episodes of WWE Raw to determine how much wrestling was on each show. Although this is a small sample, this is nonetheless a representative sample. Each of these episodes of Raw represents the three different types of programming the WWE offers each Monday night.

October 7 was the first Raw after a pay-per-view, which typically sets up the storylines and build up to the next pay-per-view. October 14 was the typical Raw, between pay-per-views. And October 21 was the last Raw before the next WWE pay-per-view, often referred to by wrestling fans as the "go home" episode.

In addition to calculating how much wrestling was on each show, I also determined the prevalence of other segments on the WWE's flagship program. This includes WWE video recaps and mic work. I also calculated how much time commercials take on Raw. And whatever didn't fall into these categories went into the "other" section.

The time you see below represents the average time each category appeared on the three episodes of Raw. The percent is how much, on average, of each show was devoted to that type of segment. The average airtime of Raw over those three weeks was three hours six minutes and 15 seconds. I used this figure to calculate the percentages.

Commercials: 49 minutes 35 seconds (26.6 percent)

If the WWE truly has only 15 minutes of wrestling in three hours of Raw, I can understand some fans being upset at this. But when fans complain there are too many commercials, I just shake my head. I don't know how they expect the WWE to pay its bills without ad revenue. 26.6 percent of Raw being commercials is perfectly in line with other prime time programming. The WWE consistently had 15 total breaks for commercials on each episode of Raw, usually lasting three or three-and-a-half minutes each.

Mic work: 25 minutes 18 seconds (13.6 percent)

The may be the first surprise for some wrestling fans. This category includes in-ring promos, backstage segments, and interviews. I did not include segments that focused on the Raw commentators' talking. One of the stereotypes about the WWE is that it focuses more on talking than wrestling. While it may lean more in that direction than it did on wrestling programming in the past, WWE Raw still has much less talking than wrestling.

However, there were significant variations in this average based on which episode of Raw I was studying. The October 7 Raw, which set up new WWE storylines, had just over 24 minutes of mic work. The October 14 episode had just under 21 minutes of mic work. And the "go home" Raw episode on October 21 had 31 minutes of mic work. This included the lengthy contract signing at the conclusion of the show.

Highlights, recaps, and replays: 9 minutes 27 seconds (5.1 percent)

I've made it clear in the past that this is the only thing that drives me crazy on Raw. As someone who doesn't miss an episode or a minute of Raw, I am at the point of madness when these video packages invade WWE programming. But much like the mic work findings, both the number and duration of these WWE highlights varied widely by episode.

For example, the October 7 and 21 editions of Raw aired 13 and 15 of these WWE video packages, respectively. These segments accounted for just over 10 and 12 minutes on each respective episode of Raw. However, the October 14 Raw surprised me with only seven recap videos for under six minutes of programming time.

Wrestling: 1 hour 2 minutes 11 seconds (33.4 percent)

Yes, you read that correctly. There is more wrestling on Raw than mic work. And there is more wrestling than there are commercials. I included all types of live physical action, including attacks after matches, during promos, and backstage. However, this did not skew the numbers because this extra type of physical action represented a very small portion of each WWE Raw. I did not include wrestling that aired on highlights, recaps, and replays.

Also, there was little variation on how much wrestling was on each episode of Raw. The October 14 Raw had the most wrestling with one hour and five minutes and the October 21 Raw had the least wrestling with just under an hour. If WWE fans honestly think there are only 15 minutes of wrestling on three hours of Raw, they must be watching the NFL by mistake. Research has shown there are only 11 minutes of football in a three-hour NFL game.

Other: 39 minutes 45 seconds (21.3 percent)

Finally, this category includes everything from ring entrances and Michael Cole explaining how to download the WWE App to videos of the WWE's charity efforts and wrestlers gloating after victories. I was very surprised at how much of Raw was devoted to WWE ring entrances. But WWE fans have become so conditioned to this aspect of wrestling, I can't imagine it going away.

Conclusion

Despite the aforementioned results, I understand what older wrestling fans really mean when they say there are 15 minutes of wrestling on Raw. However, the business has changed and don't think the WWE will be changing its product anytime soon. But if you watch WWE Raw closely, there is still a lot of great wrestling.

So after you've read it, what do you think about it? Does highlights and recaps drive you insane? Is the three-hour format helping the content as much as it is helping the McMahon's pockets? Discuss the article.

Original Link: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/much-wrestling-wwe-raw-may-surprised-142700204--spt.html

 

[ASKane]

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. We say how much adverts there were last night as between Sandow coming out and losing there was 2 ad breaks. I think they should rename themselves World Entertainment as they do very little wrestling and this proves it

 

[strongbad]

The replays and analysis is the most annoying. If they're going to talk about it, make it look professional and provide more details, like a real sports show. I think they could have an opportunity to evolve in this aspect.

For example, have a backstage crew comment on the replays, like they do with Football for instance during intermission, and go into detail with the storylines. I'm not saying it should be 10 minutes, but 2-3 minutes at the top of the 2nd and 3rd hour is enough. In addition, instead of posting something as vague as "2 weeks ago", provide actual dates of the replays. When I go back and watch stuff on youtube, I have to actually find when the clip is played and then look at a calendar so that I can establish when the original replay occurred.

Could be done a lot better.

 

[faltemer]

For every hour of television there is approximately 17-20 minutes of commercial. So if they remained at that consistency, they actually would be on the low side. As for the rest, contrary to what most IWC, go back and watch an attitude era episode of raw, and I gurantee recaps/analysis/highlights are at least 5% of the show. Preferably they should cut the 'other" category in half as far as time goes, and add that to the wrestling portion. And hour and 20-30 minutes per show would be perfect

 

[Septumus]

Commercial time seems about right. 30-33%~ is generally commercial time for shows. In a 30 minute slot shows run 20-23 minutes normally with 7-10 minutes of ads. Looking at it, it has less commercial time in raw % of the show.

Less time promoting the WWE App and less recaps can only help the product to me though. I don't need a recap from 10 minutes ago normally.

All in all, the show is fine in the split up or segments, a healthy balance of commercial time, wrestling and mic time.

 

[jameyt2003]

Dude great article. Instead of our complaining, we should just start doing research.

I can buy this as a credible breakdown of WWE RAW. I wish he would do another similar study analyzing the amount of time a certain superstar receives in a given month, given the circumstances. Look at John Cena and how much attention he was given by sampling RAW broadcasts from a given timeframe. Say, Summer of '05 compared to the Summer '11. Just a thought. WAIT! ITS MY THOUGHT. Nobody copy my thought!

As for the results of the study, I believe that the actual perception of the amount of wrestling differs from the figures he withdrew from his study. Perhaps it is not the quantity of time given to differing content but the quality and delivery of that content that catches peoples attention.

 

[shalliin]

The thing to remember here is that this was just 3weeks of one show. You would need a lot larger sample of shows to really say for sure what the numbers come out to.
The standard NA time for commercials during 1hr is 15-17min, not 20 as some have said. Including credits of a show, the standard 1 hr program has a run time between 43 to 46 min of the program with the commercials taking up the rest of the 60min hour.
Depending on the program, they add/remove commercial time based on what the station can sell for the program(such as wrestling and sports/specials) or to make up time to fill the period(movies aired where movie run time is say, 1h24min will have commercials to bring to 2hr time block). This varies by network and movie, if it's a premier or standard run or tv movie and what not.
So going by this article detailing the time of 1 3hr show, that's still less then half the show being actual wrestling. That's like going to watch a baseball game and spending half the time watching the ground crew set up the field instead of the play.
As far as i recall, no one ever complained of only 15min of wrestling. we did complain that everything else used more time then the actual wrestling and the numbers of this article do play that out. There's always a huge chunk of time for commercials, but for at least the live crowd, matches should not be scripted to so neatly fall between commercial breaks. With today's tech, it's easy for them to do the split screen recap of the commercial break action while continuing the match. They've been doing that since the early 90's and no reason they can't do it now.
1hr and 2min of wrestling is still too ridiculously low for the time they have to play with. I could almost, almost accept that for a 2 hr show, but with that extra hour(which usually goes past by 10-15min), this is too short a time to be acceptable. At least 50-% of your run time should be related to actual matches, even if there is some overlap with commercials, and promos being aired on split screens during a match.
Event that 39 minutes of other. Can cut that back by having more ring entrances during the commercials. Some of what was described as other really fits more in the recap/replay time or in the mic work time.
It's even worse when you think about the people involved. The person who did the article should have also tracked how much time was spent on the individual characters. Considering how large a roster of wrestlers they have (between raw, smackdown, nxt) and how much time they have in a week to fill (2hr smackdown, 1hr nxt, 3hr raw==6hr+saturday slam and explosion) there is a overabundance of time given to a small group while the rest are short shifted and not given time to really display their skill sets.
So a good article, and details some interesting info, but the sample size is too small to be definitive and there is other info not shown that needs to be investigated for a more complete analysis of the situation. Someone would need to sit down and compare not just Raw, but other shows and go back to say, early 80's and track as near as can to dates about 1yr apart to show how things have changed. Even sticking to just Raw, take 2 eps a month going back to the first and for every year up to today and compare how the times breakdown with that sample size. 20yrs times 2 shows a month times 12 months a year == 480 shows to compare with about 850-1000hrs of potential time to go over. If that's too much take 1 show a month for that 20 years. That is 240 shows with about 4-500hrs of tape. That is a large enough sample to truly track and detail the time situations.

 

[Eyebrows]

I have to Sky+ (DVR) Raw so I can fast-forward the advert breaks but this seems to be a US trend in general, especially for sporting events, and I think I'd have the same issue if I watched other US sports live. I can't imagine sitting through a 5 minute ad-break. There's times I've been watching Raw live, it comes back from an ad-break, has a backstage segment, shows somebody walking down the corridor to the ring then goes immediately to another break.

The article does not take into account content and the quality of the product either. Is it 1 hour of top-quality, story-line driven wrestling or is it 40 minutes of top-quality wrestling and 20 minutes of filler involving Khali or Hornswoggle. YMMV on this since what somebody else might see as filler may appeal to somebody else. Same as with promo/talking segments. Is the extra hour being used to get other people over and get more people on the mic or is the stick given to the same people more often than not.

I'm not saying one way or the other because to me there's still good weeks and bad weeks like there always has been, but you have to look at specific content rather than breaking down numbers to get the full picture. Are they comfortably filling three hours with top content because they have the resources and writing to do so or are they scraping around to find three hours worth of content because they're obliged by the network to do so.