Companies Need To Stop Streams

[Danmen001]

Quite desperately, I might add. We've had many a thought in LDs, where we see an amazing number of people in stream rooms, coupled with how many streams there are out there.

The WWE especially probably loses the most from this. Let's take 1000 people from a stream, and times it by say $40 (About the price in America, I believe). Already, the WWE loses $40000. Times that by how many chat rooms out there, at least 10. At least. There, the WWE loses $400000. That's crippling for any company, especially for a number that can pay a star's cheque.

With the financial crisis, and superstar cuts, the WWE can't really afford to lose money like that. My suggestion (as you may have guessed), stop them. I'm fairly sure that streaming paid events is illegal anyway, and if they shut down the sites/companies that did streams, and sued them for loss, they could probably make up the money. It might be a small trouble to get lawyers, but how is that in comparison to $400000 for every event?

I pose this question to you now? Do you think it would be worth it for the WWE? Would people buy PPVs instead if they had to, to watch the show? Or would people not just watch it?

 

[Shocky]

The bigger problem would be, why is the WWE in a time of recession still charging, what is it now, 40-45 dollars per pay per view 14 times a year? That doesn't sound very fan friendly to me. People go to streams and download music and movies for a reason.

People will buy things they know that are good, and for a right price. The music industry bitches nonstop about the internet killing the business, when in reality the bands and "artists" sold themselves out along time ago when they settled for making singles as opposed to making albums. When the dirty secret about CD's got out and the capacity for 80 minutes of music, with most bands maybe putting 40 minutes of music on them, people rejected the industry, and the industry came up with their own smoke and mirrors argument.

Likewise with downloading movies. People in the industry were terrified that the internet and streaming were going to ruin the business. It might have a negative effect on otherwise terrible movies, but for the most part, the good movies have caught on. With inclusion of Imax and 3D technology, and simply upping their games, the movie industry has done well. Hell, look at the Dark Knight, in a troubling financial time, this movie managed to pull in a cool billion dollars worldwide.

Simply put, people will pay for quality. You produce a good, full length album, people will buy it. If you produce a good, 2 hour long quality movie, people will buy it. The WWE doesn't produce great pay per views month in and month out, therefore, people aren't going to buy every pay per view and go to streams. There is a reason the WWE sees a substantial buy rate increase at the big four. For some reason, it seems like the wrestlers up their game, and give quality performances. The fans know this, and tha'ts why the buyrates for those shows go up. It's simple, if the WWE produced quality pay per views from month to month, people would buy them. Plus, if the WWE would lower the prices of clearly inferior pay per views to spur buyrates, it might help out as well.

 

[Tim]

Yes, streaming is illegal. Yes, the WWE would want to stop it, as it makes them lose money. But it is hard to stop it, because it would be damn near impossible to find every site that streams the show. And then once you find those sites, you'd have to shut them down. It would in the end be a waste of time and money to find these sites, and you would be lucky to shut down half of them. So I can't think fo a plausible way for the WWE to begin to shut down these sites.

Shocky brings up a good point. People pay for quality. You look at some of the cards this year, they have been downright terrible, and people would think "There's no way in hell i'm paying $40 for that card!" You've got to appeal to the fans more if you want to charge that much and as Shocky said, lower the price for the lesser PPVs, and it will appeal to more people. Also, if there were no streams, people would probably just wait til the next day, and watch the PPV on youtube or some site that they found, or download the PPV. People will always find ways of getting out of paying for a PPV.

 

[justinsayne]

Shocky hit the nail right on the head, the only reason I watch shit via stream is becasue I don't feel like shelling out my hard earned money for a card that looks like shit, if the card looks good then I have no prblem paying to see it, at least that way I don't have to worry about the stream cutting out or legging up during the ME, last year I think I purchased 3 PPVs, WM23, NOC, and I can't remember but I think I also ordered ONS cause of the TLC match, and would have ordered SummerSlam had I been home, WWE just needs to lower the price on ppv, I can understand the high price tag on the "big four" but for all the other monthly PPV I think they should definitely consider lowering the price by at least $10-15, and then eliminating at least two of the PPVs, I think that alone would help the WWE out immensely, I know I would be willing to purchase alot more PPVs

 

[OIL]

Well, yeah the WWE does need to stop the streams, because it's costing them a lot of money. If all the people who watched streams actually purchased the PPVs, the WWE would get a lot more money. However, the bigger problem is the price of the PPV. In England we're fine because it's only £15, regardless, even in HD it's the same. However, WM this year cost $70 odd in America, which is insane for a PPV, even if it is WrestleMania. If the WWE lowered the price to $40, HD or not, they would get LOTS of more customers, and that 1,100,000 who purchased WM 24 could easily go up to 2,000,000 or more.

 

[Slyfox696]

Well sure, preventing people from illegally watching their shows would be good business. And for the record, the WWE actually HAS gone after several major providers of illegal streams. But given the relative ease of providing streams, it is basically a no win battle for the WWE to fight. For every major provider of illegal streams that gets shut down, two more will spring up. It's the same fight that all copyrighted media faces.

Not only that, but it really is no different than one person ordering the show and a bunch of friends coming over. Nobody wants (or sees) that stopped, so in theory, is there really any difference?

The only real way to minimize the illegal viewing of their programs is to institute their own web show of the PPV, with significantly better quality, and a price that is affordable enough to convince people to buy the show instead of illegal watching it.

But, if you offer the web show at too low of a price, who's going to buy the PPV on TV? It's the classic Catch 22.

 

[ad21k]

Well sure, preventing people from illegally watching their shows would be good business. And for the record, the WWE actually HAS gone after several major providers of illegal streams. But given the relative ease of providing streams, it is basically a no win battle for the WWE to fight. For every major provider of illegal streams that gets shut down, two more will spring up. It's the same fight that all copyrighted media faces.

Not only that, but it really is no different than one person ordering the show and a bunch of friends coming over. Nobody wants (or sees) that stopped, so in theory, is there really any difference?

The only real way to minimize the illegal viewing of their programs is to institute their own web show of the PPV, with significantly better quality, and a price that is affordable enough to convince people to buy the show instead of illegal watching it.

But, if you offer the web show at too low of a price, who's going to buy the PPV on TV? It's the classic Catch 22.

I agree with the majority, in that WWE should seriously consider lowering the price of it's PPV's the only ones I have watched and paid for legally this year were the Royal Rumble, and Wrestlemania. As the second poster stated the majority of people aren't willing to spend an extra 10p to buy Heinz Baked Beans as opposed to supermarket brands anymore, let alone spend £15 per PPV. It is scandalous to be honest, and even with Cena back I think WWE will experiance a downturn in PPV buyrates as people watch their pockets.

As slyfox696 said if WWE offer a viable alternative to these streams on their website at a price the majority are willing to pay then most people will pay for it. However since the quality of WWE's streams is actualy lower than these websites that offer it for free, then the customer is only going to make one choice. It may have an impact on television buys, but the revenue they will make up that they are losing will be far greater.