Hi all, welcome to another moment of inspiration caused no doubt by a mixture of chemicals never before conceived to man. As a forewarning, there may be no column next week owing to the Christmas Party at work (you people understand, right?), but if that’s the case I will be back regardless the following week with a special Yuletide treat for you all. This week, I crown the WWE world-leaders for technological advancements in broadcasting and wonder just how far they can go with it.
As a general rule, I don’t like WWE.com. I don’t like the fact they don’t give particularly detailed results for shows that I miss, certainly not as detailed as they used to be. I don’t like the lack of columns such as the Missing In Action “Ross Report”, which provided fascinating insights into the inner-workings of the WWE as a whole. I find the Power 25 a patronising and rather poor attempt to build hype and I don’t like the way the reporters on there are far too keen to use hyperbole at every possible juncture. Sometimes I would rather dangle my testicles into a working deep fat fryer than read another article hyping a particularly uninspiring match as the meeting of two of the greatest or fastest rising WWE Superstars in recent memory or whatever. You can marvel at the ironic nature of my last two sentences later, but in the mean time why is it that every match that has an article on it has to be between two Superstars who are the best at something? Can’t they just once be simply good or admirable? I can’t be bothered with WWE Fantasy and don’t want to spend money on WWE 24/7 or anything else for that matter. At its worst, despite its clean, attractive look and genuine attempt to provide increased content for the dedicated follower of their company to enjoy, I can’t stand it. It’s only my opinion and no doubt there are those who disagree, but it’s my column, so ha.
Yet despite the rather damning paragraph above, for one thing and one thing alone I can forgive it all and look forward to jumping to the webpage when necessity requires it. For me, it’s all about the weekly video content covering highlights of each show and occasionally some extra bits and pieces for that little more depth to a storyline or that little bit more hype. I will happily sit through another helping of that same 30 second snippet advertising WWEShopzone with their god-awful wordplay in return for a good two minute clip that shows me everything I needed to know about that storyline for that week. Technology being what it is, my broadband connection at home allows me to see a fairly good quality picture, albeit a little small, but at a good frame-rate and with good quality sound. It’s a great start but I want more!
Videos on the internet are fast becoming the fashionable thing, with the recent purchase of Youtube by Google further acknowledgement of its meteoric rise. It’s no secret that TV companies are worried of a continued fall in general ratings as they are forced to compete not just with video games and nights out, but also the increase of choice in viewing content that can now be found online.
The actions of some of the largest broadcasting corporations in the world have been impressively pro-active, especially in the last year or so. This side of the Atlantic Ocean in the UK, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) often offer some of their most popular series (such as the phenomenal Top Gear, watched by 350 million worldwide) for free to watch any time you like whilst the current season is being broadcast. Previews of various shows for the following week can often be found and perhaps most impressively a number of sporting events are streamed live, at least to UK residents. Whether it’s coverage of alternative tables in the snooker, to live rugby games to different sports at this year’s Winter Olympics, it was all live, largely unseen on regular TV and ultimately free! In the States, a recent study has found that posting clips of the David Letterman Show has seen ratings for the CBS programme jump 5%, worth approximately 200,000 viewers. So using the internet in conjunction with regular broadcasting is shown to increase not just how closely a programme might be followed, but also how many people might follow it.
Some of the biggest groups have decided to take the fight to the internet in an attempt to revitalise ratings and in my opinion rightly so, but it is the WWE who are arguably the furthest down that road and could be in prime position to capitalise on it soon with tremendous effect. The videos they have are great, but why not take it further? Why settle for just giving those who missed a show a second chance? Why not also reward people for taking the time to both watch the show and visit the site with extra un-broadcasted footage? Alright, so sometimes they offer the odd clip of someone being helped to the back by medics, and if we’re really lucky, maybe even a promo or interview filmed after broadcast, but why stop there? Why not advance storylines online through videos? Why not shoot more backstage vignettes and scenes between characters that might not normally get the air time on the main show? Why not allow matches on the low to mid card to get the attention they crave and yet so often miss out on in the build up to a pay per view?
In the long run where does this take WWE programming? Could they even consider eventually scrapping the middle-man altogether and not bother broadcasting on TV? They can control their own running time, international advertising rates and under current law would be far less restricted in terms of broadcast content. It’s a risk but could there be some very good financial incentives for trying it out?
Further a field, what could this do for smaller groups than the WWE? TNA of course have been quick to jump on the Youtube bandwagon, as well as some online content on their own website. But are small independent groups missing a trick here? In an industry dominated by one major player and a couple of groups looking to break towards real “rivals” status, any relatively cheap way of reaching out to a generally technologically savvy audience has got to be worth a try. Could it be used to bridge the gap between events for promotions that don’t get to put on shows as regularly as others? Could it be used to increase the number of people willing to invest in their own DVDs, even if there is no way that they could come to see the show live from the other side of the world? Could it be that this is the way forward for keeping independent promotions alive?
Just a thought…
“Just A Thought…” tries to think about the impact professional wrestling has on the lives of those associated with it at all the different levels. Please feel free to send any thoughts about this column, good bad or indifferent to stuart_black@hotmail.com. I will do my best to get back to you, particularly if you get me thinking myself, but even if you don’t.
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