Friday, March 11, 2005
What Are They Thinking???
Spike TV has just announced that they will not extend the contract for Vince McMahon's WWE, meaning that in September, the five weekly hours of wrestling programs currently airing on Spike will have to find a new home. On the surface, this appears to be a good move on Spike TV's part, considering the runaway success of all their other progra...wait a second. WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS THINKING??????
WWE's flagship program, Monday Night Raw, is routinely the highest-rated program on cable TV, attracting well over 2 million viewers every Monday night. It has, to be fair, had much higher ratings in the past, but even now it is still popular enough to remain at the top of the cable TV heap. In fact, if cable shows were ranked in the Nielsens alongside broadcast shows, Monday Night Raw last week would have been the ONLY cable show ranked in the top 100. USA network, which previously carried wrestling before Spike took over 5 years ago, is rumored to be the front-runner to pick it up in September.
But back to Spike. This is clearly a network in trouble. I'm not going back and researching this right now, but some new guy is coming in as president of the network, and wants to put on more original scripted programming. Great idea, boss. Let's come up with all these new programs, and then cancel the highest-rated show on cable, where we could have advertised these new shows during the only time when people actually are watching the network. Brilliant plan. Spike TV has been doomed from the start. Originally known as TNN (The Nashville Network), a few years back they changed it to mean The National Network. Their slogan was "The Network With POP!" Nobody knew what the hell that meant, and the network remained in obscurity, with only WWE as its saving grace. A drastic shift in programming came, and the network changed again, this time to Spike TV, "The First Network For Men." I was pretty sure ESPN could have made that claim 25 years earlier, but I digress. Despite these changes, wrestling is still the only thing anybody watches on this channel 5 years later.
The bottom line is this: I watch A LOT of TV. I am a 33-year old male. I am supposedly Spike TV's main demographic. I could not tell you another show that is on that channel besides wrestling. Whoops!
I give it 6 months after WWE leaves in September before Spike undergoes another drastic change, or goes under completely.
WWE's flagship program, Monday Night Raw, is routinely the highest-rated program on cable TV, attracting well over 2 million viewers every Monday night. It has, to be fair, had much higher ratings in the past, but even now it is still popular enough to remain at the top of the cable TV heap. In fact, if cable shows were ranked in the Nielsens alongside broadcast shows, Monday Night Raw last week would have been the ONLY cable show ranked in the top 100. USA network, which previously carried wrestling before Spike took over 5 years ago, is rumored to be the front-runner to pick it up in September.
But back to Spike. This is clearly a network in trouble. I'm not going back and researching this right now, but some new guy is coming in as president of the network, and wants to put on more original scripted programming. Great idea, boss. Let's come up with all these new programs, and then cancel the highest-rated show on cable, where we could have advertised these new shows during the only time when people actually are watching the network. Brilliant plan. Spike TV has been doomed from the start. Originally known as TNN (The Nashville Network), a few years back they changed it to mean The National Network. Their slogan was "The Network With POP!" Nobody knew what the hell that meant, and the network remained in obscurity, with only WWE as its saving grace. A drastic shift in programming came, and the network changed again, this time to Spike TV, "The First Network For Men." I was pretty sure ESPN could have made that claim 25 years earlier, but I digress. Despite these changes, wrestling is still the only thing anybody watches on this channel 5 years later.
The bottom line is this: I watch A LOT of TV. I am a 33-year old male. I am supposedly Spike TV's main demographic. I could not tell you another show that is on that channel besides wrestling. Whoops!
I give it 6 months after WWE leaves in September before Spike undergoes another drastic change, or goes under completely.
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Have you ever seen that Most Extreme Challenge show, where they dub voices over the Japanese guys and people do wierd stunts and stuff. That thing must kill in the ratings. Also, don't forget about the CSI re-runs.
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