TV Ratings & Their "Importance" To You The Fan!

[MrPlatano1989]

Hello "IWC", I would love to know if you care about TV ratings. And if so why do YOU personally care about ratings and wrestling? Everyone has their own opinion and I would love to hear it.

Sure the company cares about Ratings because it effects their income and sometimes who they decide to utilize. But beyond that, why do you care about it. Some "fans" always use ratings as the basis for their arguments about product quality, or failures. I know I would love to watch every week but I have a schedule / job and so do many other people. Therefor I have to catch it on youtube. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy this weeks segments or The Authority angles, I just couldn't tune in. So because of that I don't think ratings accurately reflect failures or successes in program.

Now when talking about each product a lot of people love to say, "no ones watching so who cares"... But People do watch it, usually over a million people every week for TNA, and millions for WWE. Just because that's only a small portion of the entire nation, doesn't make it a small amount of viewers. Name 500 people let alone 1 million or 3 million. I personally don't care if the whole world is watching, just that I am watching. People don't drool over HIMYM ratings or argue about how much people tuned in to Supernatural. They watch it for themselves if they enjoy it and that's that. People love WWE's huge crowds for TV & Wrestlemania but forget that multiple times that are watching around the world every week. Those 20,000 are nothing compared to the amount of 100,000's watching around the world on TV or streams for both companies.

I feel like people only drool over wrestling ratings because of their importance during the Monday night wars and their emphasis in countless documentaries or interviews. Most people don't even understand that the ratings system is simply a percentage of viewers. Which means every year as more people get TV's EVERY shows rating most likely will decrease. If I remember correctly it only accounts for a specific type of Nielsen TV, and doesn't even count most of us. I Love Lucy currently holds the highest TV rating of all time at 67.3 in 1952 - 1953. The highest rating of 2013-2014? A 12.8 with Sunday Night Football. that means 87.2% of the nation was watching something else. If those same amount of I love Lucy viewers tuned in to something today the rating will be much lower due to more people owning the provider. Which means the exact amount of viewers TNA gets now would have equaled a higher rating in 1997, and a lower rating 10 years from now. Same with WWE and any other program.

So can people please comment why do YOU care about the ratings. When you started caring about them so much. And if they make or break the viewing experience for you. And if you learned something new or have a change of mind about ratings spread the word. Most people simply don't understand the ratings and think they represent poor quality which I believe to be completely false.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

We enjoy talking about the business aspect of wrestling as well as our personal enjoyment of the product. In some ways it is more enjoyable than watching wrestling and part of what keeps some of us comung back. Ratings/viewership are the most accessible and easiest way of measuring the success of each business. The drop on ratings is important because it could mean the end of a product or a change in a management or a push for a new guy or the return of John Cena to the title scene. It is a hobby just like talking salary caps in football or Steve Ballmer buying the Clippers for $2bn.

I don't know how else to explain it to you.

 

[Navi]

I'm like you. I don't care if half the world watches, or just me. I don't let anyone else's pleasure or displeasure of a show, any show take away from me either wanting or not wanting to watch it.

I've never seen some of the highest rated shows on TV right now, Walking Dead, Blacklist, Big Bang Theory etc, etc. I usually work nights, and when I get home not going to start time shifting to see where in the country it's on so I can watch it.

When it comes to RAW and the rest, I feel the same. I'll watch whether it's a bad episode or not. I don't share the same opinion as others do, so to them it might have been the best episode of RAW they've ever seen, while I'm like meh about it.

I think if you are determining what you watch based on ratings, then you're letting others decide for you, and I like to decide for myself.

 

[Mudlup50]

I have never really cared to be honest. I could see it being used as a tool to win an argument about wrestlers being over...but even then it doesn't prove anything. It's just a number to me, if I see a 2 I know it's lowish, if I see a 4 it is higher xD that's the extent I care.

 

[TheICChampion]

While I don't personally care about "ratings" per se, it's like every other TV show out there. What happens when a show gets constantly low ratings, regardless of whether you and I like it or not? Never mind the whole "WWE has been around for so long so nothing is ever going to take it off the air" or whatever. It may not happen for a very long time but it can still happen. Look what happened with WCW. Questionable decisions, combined with relying on the same guys, combined with things that a lot of people don't want to see. Where is WCW now? That's right. No network or cable station wanted anything to do with it anymore. What's WWE doing right now? Hmmm?

 

[rbv13]

Just finished reading a handful of reports covering another week of "low" ratings for RAW. What I failed to see in any of those reports is that the show finished 2nd in the cable ratings for the night. The fact is RAW is amongst the top shows every week and WWE programing leads whatever network it happens to be on. The reality of the situation is current competition for how individuals choose to entertain themselves. The current number of outlets is crazy compared to a few years ago, let alone a decade or so ago.

Bitching about rating reminds me of people who complain about gas or food prices. "A Mc D hamburger used to be one wooden nickle." Get a clue dumb asses circumstances change.

 

[Reflection]

I check the TRP reports on WZ to see if a good episode got a good rating and a bad one got a bad rating. I feel happy when that happens, because that might make the writers see that they should tweak things a bit. Conversely, it feels bad to see even good episodes of TNA getting poor viewership. That's about as much I care about the ratings. I can certainly live without knowing them, but a little extra info isn't bad.

 

[Rayne]

Bitching about rating reminds me of people who complain about gas or food prices. "A Mc D hamburger used to be one wooden nickle." Get a clue dumb asses circumstances change.

I love when I walk into a thread and someone's already inadvertently set up my point for me. My job's a lot easier now.

Circumstances change. They don't change magically, but they change based on reasons- reasons which can often be discerned by taking into account ratings, amongst other factors. Ratings in and of themselves don't have too much meaning; it's when you analyze the ratings in conjunction with the circumstances surrounding them that you can get a feel for the overarching trends in the business. If you understand how to interpret the data, you can get an idea for what's going to happen in the future.

Case A: Talk of "low ratings" for RAW recently. People discussing RAW's reduced ratings from three months ago and calling it proof that the current product isn't engaging customers are failing to analyze the trends surrounding that rating. Every year, from late August to December, the RAW ratings dip by 0.3-0.4. There's a program called Monday Night Football, which is a far more popular draw, and shares audience with the WWE. Every year at this time, the WWE is focused on keeping as much of their audience watching as they can- not building it, just not bleeding it. The Royal Rumble is almost always scheduled during the offweek between the conference championships and the Super Bowl for this reason; the WWE doesn't expect to compete with Monday Night Football, just maintain against it.

Case B: TNA, 2010-14. For years, people here were saying (myself loudly amongst them) that TNA's failure to improve their rating from 2009's 1.0 was a serious danger sign for the company, while several people bleated on about how ratings don't matter for anything. You'd think maintaining a steady audience would be, if not a good thing at least a neutral one, but in 2011 TNA had just got done paying an absolute shitload of money for a media buy, talent signing, and HD set upgrade. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that TNA's ownership was expecting a return on that investment- and that if they didn't get that ROI, that TNA was in for serious troubles ahead. Look what happened; TNA didn't get a return on that massive investment, and now they're experiencing a cash crunch. Their current network has lost faith in them, and, best case scenario here, they're moving to a network with 80% of the viewers, meaning they'll be making less money for producing their show, as their new network won't be selling as much advertising during TNA programming.

Ratings are one of several factors (one of the larger influences amongst them) that allow you to see how a show is performing. If you're capable of interpreting the data, you can get a rough idea of what will happen to that company in the future. This is called "business analysis", and it's a very large career field people get paid absolute shitloads of money to be right in.

Circumstances change. Being able to interpret the data can give you advance notice on how they will.

 

[Mustang Sally]

The ratings are mostly a figure to be used as comparison; I would think that's what the producers of TV shows are interested in. Are the ratings increasing or decreasing? Based on that, they can come up with numerous explanations as to why....interpreting data in the manner they want to interpret it (code word: spin) as they use the data to show their management, investors, and the public what they want them to see. Smoke & mirrors.

What the public often does is misinterpret ratings because we don't understand the factors that go into them. Plus, our explanations are too simplistic: many folks presume that if WWE achieved an 8.5 Nielsen rating in 1998...and a 2.9 today, that WWE has "failed" and will soon be out of business.

Of course, that interpretation doesn't take into account the incredible increase in the number of entertainment alternatives we have today that didn't exist back in '98. It doesn't take into account other factors too, most of which I don't even know.....which is actually the point. Most of us don't know.

Does Vince McMahon look at the weekly ratings and have a shitfit if he sees them go down?.....Probably, but that's because he's Vince McMahon.

As long as his company remains profitable, even in the face of declining ratings, his company will live to fight another day.

 

[Rayne]

The ratings are mostly a figure to be used as comparison; I would think that's what the producers of TV shows are interested in. Are the ratings increasing or decreasing? Based on that, they can come up with numerous explanations as to why....interpreting data in the manner they want to interpret it (code word: spin) as they use the data to show their management, investors, and the public what they want them to see. Smoke & mirrors.

What the public often does is misinterpret ratings because we don't understand the factors that go into them. Plus, our explanations are too simplistic: many folks presume that if WWE achieved an 8.5 Nielsen rating in 1998...and a 2.9 today, that WWE has "failed" and will soon be out of business.

Of course, that interpretation doesn't take into account the incredible increase in the number of entertainment alternatives we have today that didn't exist back in '98. It doesn't take into account other factors too, most of which I don't even know.....which is actually the point. Most of us don't know.

Does Vince McMahon look at the weekly ratings and have a shitfit if he sees them go down?.....Probably, but that's because he's Vince McMahon.

As long as his company remains profitable, even in the face of declining ratings, his company will live to fight another day.

Ex-ac-ally. The problem with using ratings alone over the course of years is that they're independent of the changing circumstances within an industry. Comparing 1998 RAW ratings to today's ratings are meaningless, as the WWE is a different company today. Now, you also have to take into account their ancillary programming like Total Divas, the WWE Network, and WWE Films- which people love to shit on, but they consistently produce low-budget films which bring in more revenue then they cost to produce. It's not all about the flagship show anymore; RAW used to be the engine that ran the company, but it's in the process of developing into a tentpole for the rest of the company's projects.

The WWE's been a steady performer for several years now, which is why it's usually pretty boring to talk about how they do business. They're after long-term success, and as the pay-per-view model disappears, are building the platform to carry that long-term success into the era of internet subscription. Whether they will be successful in that remains to be seen; right now there aren't enough indicators to make a reasonable projection.

 

[kadroan]

Ratings aren't a big deal to me. We're in a new age now where a lot of people don't have cable like they used to and people using alternatives like Hulu, Netflix and you got TV channels like CBS and HBO that are getting their only monthly subscription service like the WWE.

Wrestling has to evolve in order to appeal to a mass audience like the NFL and NBA does but how they can do that without losing their identity?