Do PPVs need to be longer now that Raw is 3 hours?

[taylor360unc]

Most PPVs with the exception of Wrestlemania are 3 hours, now that Raw is 3 hours, do you think that PPVs need to up their time?

PPV Pre Shows are a cool idea but I believe PPVs should still be 30 minutes longer.

Wrestlemania should become a 1 hour longer show in my opinion also. Tell me what you think.

 

[pepentorresHHH]

I guess a 30 minute bump wouldnt be a bad thing.... but 4 hours would be BAD because that would mean youd have to make wrestlemania longer and its 4 hours already! I went to wrestlemania 28 and after the HIAC and jericho vs punk i almost had no voice left for rock vs cena..... i dont know how will people survive a 5 hour wrestlemania......

 

[Skinsley]

I have been thinking this exact same thing since three hours was announced and I am really not sure.

I think four hours is pushing it even for a PPV, but at the same time, what makes the PPV so special in comparison once the extra hour is a regular mainstay? Would WWE charge more for the PPV, will they have to up their game and make PPV's spectacular in comparison to Raw and Smackdown?

I would love Mania to be a 5 hour thing. I think it is supposed to be one of those events that you watch even if you dont watch every show every week & month.
However I would go for a DARK extra hour that will then be featured on the DVD as I believe the timescale would effect people who are watching on PPV and viewership rates may be effected.

I think to summarise: If RAW is three hours, PPV's other than mania should remain three hours but would need a dramatic increase in quality.

 

[Firewall_Philip_Hanan]

PPVs are 30 minutes longer due to dark matches, but then again Raw has dark matches too, so I guess it's a tie. Honestly, I just want better matches at a PPV. Not longer matches. I've seen far too many PPVs with lackluster matches that just get dragged out for far too long.

 

[Kizzani]

Are you watching the same PPV's I am watching? More time to do what preview everything we watch for weeks leading up to the PPV? Or maybe give more time to bad wrestlers to try and outshine the real stars.

MITB matches where you could do your hair or shower or anything but watch them

Tag team PTP and Los Boriquas 2
Ryback ( who cares who he fights)
Divas anything

Holy crap that was 1/2 the PPV. damn.

 

[KoC417]

MORE matches at PPVs. With Raw longer with the proper build more feuds and story-lines could be done which would include more talent. Then you could add another hour to PPVs to help include those stars. Man that would be fantastic. A major feud at the low-card level, a major feud at the mid card level, a major feud at the main event level, a legitimate Number 1 contenders match for the championships. Championship matches that actually went for more than 7-8 minutes. YES! YES! YES!

 

[HBsam31]

I could see a thirty minute increase, but other than that I wouldn't want them extending shows to much longer. I don't know how I feel about Raw moving to 3 hours. I will reserve my judgement until I see a few shows. I think though with the 3 hour Raw it will give them more time to promote the matches and wrestlers that will be on the ppv. Hopefully this will cut out the thrown together unadvertised matches. All in all I think 3 hours for most ppvs is good like I said maybe add a half hour. Four hours for Mania is plenty to. I fear that more than that would tire people out by the end.

 

[Diet Soda]

PPVs do have less filler than Raws though; an average episode of Raw I'd wager would be <50% wrestling, with all the promos and commercials. Plus this silly Tout thing will be eating up time as well. I think I'll find myself fast-forwarding through a lot of Raw once it goes to 3 hours, whereas I'll watch a PPV all the way through.

3 hours for a PPV view is just about right without being exhausted by the end of it. Speaking as a Britfan, I was dozing off during the second MitB match on Sunday night.

 

[wooooo]

No, just no.

MITB is the perfect example, they only built up 4 matches for it before throwing in a bunch of filler.

If they can't even make a 3 hour show interesting from start to finish there's no point making it longer.

4 hours works for Mania but that's it.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

If they did that, then they'd have to go with Mania in a 2 day chunk - something they could just get away with...

PPV as a concept is gone for WWE once the network comes in as they will be going hell for leather for subscribers to the network rather than individual buys, hence why they are not booking so many matches in advance. In a sense they want the PPV's to seem like RAW.

WM is pretty much 2 days already, as they have the HOF the night before.

 

[Irig]

More than 3 hours would kill PPV's IMO.
Raw will have its usual Promo and builtup which you wont see on ppv. Also special stipulation matches are rare sight in raw. So i can see the difference there.

squash matches can be on raw but not on ppv which i think they should change.

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

Not really no, No need to be any longer, look at MitB, it had like 5 matches scheduled for the card and we had like 3 matches added onto the card and still it didn't last a full 3 hours! On raw, the extra hour will be used to further storylines, but on ppvs it's going to be match after match.

 

[asiatic7]

No, WCW did that during the MNW's. Their PPV's were like watching Nitro, but with a different ring apron. Extending PPV's is a bad idea.... Three hours of RAW is a bad idea!

 

[rge2010]

I would love Mania to be a 5 hour thing. I think it is supposed to be one of those events that you watch even if you dont watch every show every week & month.
However I would go for a DARK extra hour that will then be featured on the DVD as I believe the timescale would effect people who are watching on PPV and viewership rates may be effected.

PPV's are not rated on 'viewers'. They are rated on 'buy rates'. It doesnt matter if somebody pays to watch a PPV and only watches 5 seconds, 5 minutes, 5 hours. Its still 1 PPV buy!!!

Wrestlemania moving to 5 hours would only mean one thing - the fans are getting more for their money. The only tiny concern I would have is the crowd would be drained for the main event! So atmopshere could suffer then again you usually have 60,000 plus nowadays.

 

[The Fabulous Rougeau's]

I don't see a need to add PPV time since Raw is now 3 hours. Keep in mind the structure of Raw and the structure of a PPV are completely different. Raw's have more promos and other things that don't involve actual matches. With the added hour I can see the time filled with 1 more match, more segments and the whole Tout thing.

PPV's on the other hand, are centered around the matches. WWE can puhenvert on anywhere from 5-8 matches on a PPV depending on what type of matches they have. The segments are cut down and are shorter then ones on Raw.

Whenever the WWE network airs and they carry all the non big 4 PPV's, I hope that the Rumble, SummerSlam and Survivor Series all get bumps in time. Mania is already 4 hours, and I would like to see the other events follow suite and become 4 hour shows. I think it is necessary to seperate them from the WWE PPV's because if they don't distinguish them, then people are not going to be as inclined to order them.

 

[Mustang Sally]

More than 3 hours would kill PPV's IMO.

It wouldn't kill them, yet I wonder if WWE has considered the possibility that 3-hour RAWs might cause less people to buy PPVs. After all, how much pro wrestling is too much?

When RAW was a one-hour program originating from the Manhattan Center.....and there was no Smackdown..... I don't remember feeling dissatisfied that there was too little wrestling on TV. But, as with many industries, the company realized it had a good thing and started over-saturating the market with product.

A few possibilities:

-Some folks will watch the 3-hour RAW and decide they've had quite enough WWE.....and not buy PPVs they used to buy.

-Some folks will find 3 hours of RAW too much to deal with and watch only some of it (or eventually tune out completely and watch none of it), thereby missing build-ups to the PPVs, causing them to not buy the monthly events.

-If WWE doesn't extend the length of PPVs, some folks will decide there's no need to buy them in the first place if they're getting that much entertainment for free on a weekly basis.

-WWE does extend PPVs, and some folks find these events to be too long, causing them to stop buying PPVs since they don't have the patience to watch them in their entirety. (If you can't watch it all, why buy it in the first place?)


Again, I'm not talking about PPV buys suffering so much that it becomes unfeasible to produce them anymore (a ridiculous notion, obviously) but there are bound to be some consumers who fall into each of the categories I named. Even if they don't amount to a significant number, I can't believe WWE wants to see their PPV numbers decrease as a result of this ambitious 3-hour endeavor, right?

 

[Skinsley]

PPV's are not rated on 'viewers'. They are rated on 'buy rates'. It doesnt matter if somebody pays to watch a PPV and only watches 5 seconds, 5 minutes, 5 hours. Its still 1 PPV buy!!!

Wrestlemania moving to 5 hours would only mean one thing - the fans are getting more for their money. The only tiny concern I would have is the crowd would be drained for the main event! So atmopshere could suffer then again you usually have 60,000 plus nowadays.

I agree with the atmosphere part. But the Viewers are the Buyrate, and what I meant was that some people watch a two or three hour show because they make the time in their busy lives between, work, family, social & Sleep in order to watch it.
What I was suggesting was, that an extra hour on the end of a PPV may be that extra hour that was already hard to make time for in the first place....someones not gonna pay for a PPV if they don't feel they have time to watch it all. Not to mention the almost inevitable price increase for your viewing pleasure.
I WANT MORE. But does everyone want more?

 

[Dagger Dias]

PPV events do not need to be longer now that Raw is 3 hours. What they SHOULD do, is announce more matches ahead of time and use the extra hour on Raw to help promote them. There is really no reason to extend the PPV's just because Raw received another hour, as the current format works rather well. I could understand why they might extend the PPV's from now on if they do.... it's not needed though. 3 hours for PPV's (4 for Wrestlemania) is perfectly fine, although I would not have anything against an extension if they did make one. That means more matches, and unless it's divas matches or pointless filler that's really not a bad thing.

 

[justinsayne]

I think what a lot of people here are forgetting is that RAW is not really 3 hrs., there is about 15-20 mins. worth of commercials for every 40-45 mins. of actual programming, so in that 3 hr. block we will be getting about 45-60 mins. of commercials within RAWs 3 hr. block, meaning RAW really is only about 2 hrs./2 hrs. 15 mins. long each week. PPVs are commercials free, so that 45-60 mins. of commercial time RAW has to deal with, doesn't exist in PPVs, and that is an extra 45-60 mins. of time WWE can dedicated to actual programming instead. So in short, No, PPVs do not need to be longer, as they already still are technically longer than RAW anyway.

 

[LoudClearVoice]

I think 3 hours for general PPVs and 4 for WM is just fine.

Now that RAW is 3 hours, the key for the PPVs is going to be improving the quality. They have to give us a reason to watch other than for simply an extra hour.


Sometimes, I find myself drained at the end of a PPV, so I don't know if I can sit through another hour. During RAW you have commercials and nonsense skits, so it's not the same thing.