I'm seeing buzz today that when (Monday Night? that's still unclear) Raw moves to Netflix, it will stream commercial-free "for Netflix subscribers". The wording of this is very interesting, because it suggests that Netflix/WWE are going to somehow make an ad-supported stream available for viewers who want to watch Raw but don't want a Netflix subscription for any other reason. It does mean that WWE is giving up a chunk of ad revenue, which they might make up by more prominent in-arena placements (logos on the ring mat, integrated ads, etc.), but presumably it also makes WWE/TKO less beholden to advertiser whims when it comes to content. There's also no indication yet whether a commercial-free Raw would retain the current 3-hour format, contract back to a strict 2 hours, or go with something flexible in the middle.
On Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 1:31:10 PM UTC-5 Adam Bowie wrote: > On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 5:54 PM M-D November <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Would I be right in interpreting this to mean that the Netflix deal >> effectively shutters the WWE Network standalone service internationally, >> much as the Peacock migration did in the US? > > > They haven't said as much, but I think it will do in due course. The WWE > will have done rights deal with various outlets globally that might not let > them switch to Netflix everywhere in January 2025, hence the headline > reference only to RAW, and only to a few territories. But it's clear that > as those other deals expire, Netflix will pick everything up. The press > release's boilerplate mentioned WWE Network, but it also mentions lots of > the major partners that they'll slowly be unwinding from over the next few > years! https://corporate.wwe.com/news/company-news/2024/01-23-2024 > > In the UK, *everything* changes in January next year. The current rights > deal is with TNT Sport (seemingly now Warner Bros. Media's global sports > brand). Interestingly, here TNT Sport is also home to UFC, and I think one > of the ideas of the formation of TKO which owns both WWE and UFC was to > sell the rights together as a powerful package. It seems clear that this is > not the case right now, although I guess that UFC rights are likely to be > at a different stage in their existing rights cycles, so perhaps down the > line they end up on Netflix too once current deals are nearing the end of > their contracts? > > One other thing I'd note is that this seems to remove the opportunity for > big PPV events outside North America. It seems that everything goes to > Netflix. So that loss of revenue must be priced in under this deal. > > Overall, an interesting entry-point for Netflix and live TV on a regular > basis. With viewership in the ~1m range in the US, it shouldn't be too much > of a technical hurdle to serve all those live streams, even allowing for > Latin American audiences watching live too. For the rest of the world, I'm > certain that WWE audiences for things like RAW are mostly next-day > time-shifted. > > This is probably a great deal for WWE too in keeping them in front of > audiences. > > Personally, it's of zero interest, but academically it's fascinating. > > > Adam > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/33c5f1b3-1338-40cd-a9fa-1b06c43977bbn%40googlegroups.com.
