You're argument was originally that Nick's subjective post was ignorant. And your use of smoke and mirrors comes from your decision to attempt (and fail, might I add) to discredit me with your silly definition of abortion to start your rebuttal. I used the term abortion to mean a lost cause - it's a fairly common use of the word. But you once again insisted on being literal in a sad attempt to draw attention away from the main argument, and you failed at it. THAT is smoke and mirrors, my friend.
LOL
No, I did that because I thought it was funny. I only mentioned it once, and even addressed other flaws in that portion of your post. That wasn't smoke and mirrors, that was just having fun.
And every year, there is talk about the disappointing numbers the show does. Eventually it'll run out of chances, or the WWE will have to take less money to produce the show since the ROI isn't there for NBC.
And the disappointing numbers talk all comes from the same places. Internet dirt sheet writers. Has anyone bothered to take the time to interview someone in the know from NBC or WWE to ask THEM how they feel about the numbers? I'm guessing they were disappointed with the first one, because they had high hopes, but I think that as the trend has continued since, they realize, both in WWE and NBC, just what they're going to get when they show SNME.
I doubt NBC airs SNME because it will be "status quo." It's a special event, they air it with hopes that it will do better than the status quo. If NBC settled for just being average, well, they'd be UPN.
They probably air SNME for two reasons.
1) It's a new show, and not a rerun like everything else in their Saturday Night Lineup. That used to be how SNME got on TV to begin with. When SNL wasn't on, they'd air SNME.
2) It probably doesn't cost NBC any more money to air a SNME than a rerun of L&O, for reasons I specified concerning contract.
Correct. When the expectations of a special event in that time slot are high, and the show does the same numbers or even slightly higher numbers, THAT is a disasterto networks because the market is so competitive.
But, you're presuming that NBC and the WWE expected numbers higher than normal. You're making a circular argument. "Ratings should be high or they're disastrous, and we know they're disastrous if they're not high".
You've never once addressed the expectations that NBC and the WWE had for the show. And, considering the show fell right in line with previous SNME and other shows around it, and has for the last several episodes, there's no way that NBC or the WWE were expecting a 3.5 rating. Would they LIKED to have done better. Sure. Always. But, you can't reasonably tell me they expected better.
To say that NBC paid MORE money for the Saturday Night repeat of Law and Order than for the special one time event of SNME falls in line with much of your argument - naive and only telling half the story. NBC airs Law and Order a few times during the week - in fact so does TNT - but the Saturday Night 9:00 pm timeslot is where they show the REPEATS. They pay for the NEW episodes, which air Wednesday Nights during prime time. They have the rights to air repeats on Saturday Nights. So you're damn right NBC pays a load more for a one-episode special of SNME than it does to air another Law and Order repeat!
Never tried to tell you different. Never tried to insinuate differently. I figured you and I both knew that, so didn't bother to mention it.
Why mention it when it has NOTHING to do with my point?
And to call Law and Order more popular is ALSO naive. Law and Order has spinoffs? Great! So does Monday Night RAW. It's called Smackdown, ECW, Heat, etc. And when was the last time Law and Order did a pay per view buyrate? Law and Order is a bigger weekly network show because of it's wide audience appeal, but again, that's for the Wednesday Night time slot.
Are you really trying to tell me that Law and Order is not a more popular show than WWE?
The point remains the same. NBC pays a lot more for Law and Order than for SNME, if I were a guessing man.
And if this is true, it just FURTHER PROVES that the ratings for SMNE are a disaster, because when WWE goes to Bonnie Hammer and co. to renegotiate the cable contract, they will look at the SNME ratings as well as the Raw ratings, and will either a) pay WWE less money to air, or b) drop them entirely.
What?
SNME is a SPECIAL presentation, built into the contract. The WWE contracts with the network for WWE Raw, not SNME. The SNME is a bonus for both NBC and the WWE. I say this as fact because I'm almost positive that's the way it was reported back when it first happened.
WWE Raw and USA don't contract based upon SNME ratings, they contract on Raw ratings. And the fact is that Raw is one of the top rated shows on USA, and is a VERY important factor in USA network holding the top cable spot each week.
You say you have a marketing degree, and then try to give me that?
So, you accuse me of smoke and mirror's for backing my points up with statistics?
No, I accuse you of smoke and mirrors because your "statistic" proves the saying about statistics. And I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about.
Second lowest? Yeah, I guess so. Of course, the difference between a 2.4 and a 2.5 and a 2.6 is virtually nothing, in the world of television, and you know that.
And Raw is a REGULAR SHOW, SNME is a SPECIAL.
Precisely.
Raw is on cable, SNME was on network, which means it can reach a wider audience.
And it was a special on a network on a night that you even said was a bad night for TV. We've seen what happens to the WWE when they get preempted on their normal slots. Raw rating drops in half, ECW gets beat by TNA....and SNME wasn't even a regular show. It was just a wrestling show on a bad night for TV.
Additionally, network ratings and cable ratings are different. I assume you do realize that, correct?
For the 4th time, the regular status quo rating IS disastrous! They air SNME expecting better ratings, especially from the advertiser's target demographic.
But, they DON'T air them expecting better ratings. If they did, they would have canceled the show long ago. NBC and the WWE both know the general range of ratings they'll get. And when you figure in how WWE ratings are low across the board, compared to where they were even two years ago, you can't honestly expect that NBC and the WWE were expecting a much better number. In fact, I'm sure both parties were completely content with the rating.
No it wasn't. It was subjective editorial journalism. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe a tad sensationalized, but that's the idea.
It was ignorant. It wasn't disastrous, and not even close to it. The ratings held steady, both for SNME and NBC's normal slot, the WWE doesn't get advertising money, and NBC has never been unhappy with SNME ratings before, at least not to the point of not ordering new episodes.
What part of that is disastrous?
Nope, not at all. But an 11% drop!? You think NBC went to WWE and said "we want a show and an advertising campaign that will ensure that the viewership of this special run show is 11% less than last time." Dude, who's being ignorant now?
11% drop? Where are you getting that from?
The last rating WWE did was a 2.5. This was a 2.4. That's a difference of approximately 100,000 viewers. Where are you getting an 11% drop from?
And, no, NBC went to WWE and said, "Hey, bring us some new programming, put it against America's Most Wanted, and let's see what we can do". I mean, didn't you say it yourself? How much advertising did NBC do for SNME? Obviously NBC wasn't all that concerned about getting some kind of astronomical rating. The SNME rating fell perfectly in line with all the other ratings.
That's not disastrous, that's average.
A 2.6 - 2.9 rating heading into the 2nd largest pay per view of the year is hardly unrealistic. Expecting a 4.0+ would be unrealistic, and rest assured, had WWE pulled a 3.0 they'd be dancing in the streets. But a 2.4 (rounded up, mind you) is NOT what they needed to see.
Of course a 2.6 is not unrealistic. But it's not a significant improvement either. I mean, you're talking about a difference of approximately 200,000 people out of 112,800,000 people. That's not even 1% of the available TV audience. You're telling me that .2% of the available TV audience difference is going to make NBC and WWE cream their pants? Come on IC. For there to be a significant difference, the WWE would have had to go over 3.0. And even then, I bet some dirtsheet write would call that "disastrous".
What part of it wasn't?
At BEST, you can make the case that it wasn't as strong as the WWE would have liked going into a major PPV, or you could have even called it a "missed opportunity". But how can you call it disastrous, when it falls in line with NBC and WWE expectations, it falls in line with NBC's other programming, it was a taped show from 5 days before, and the WWE lost no money from it?
How is that disastrous? Even on the off chance that NBC comes out tomorrow and says "The WWE SNME from August 2nd was completely out of line with the ratings we want. The advertisers all kept their money, and we will never have SNME on again"...even on the VERY long chance they were to come out and say that, how does that hurt the WWE? Those specials are just that...specials. Their contract with USA is based upon their Raw ratings, not their SNME ratings from a traditionally poor ratings night. The WWE STILL didn't lose anything, except a chance to be on NBC.
In no reasonable and objective person's world, could that be called disastrous.
Good thing I put this in the Spam zone, eh?
