WWE: Two potential strategies to help boost the flailing ratings
By Jason Reed
It is no surprise that Vince McMahon and company are panicked over the record-setting low ratings that WWE programming is currently receiving.
Wrestling has one of the biggest fanbases in the entire world. Because of that, WWE has been so successful in producing weekly episodic wrestling shows for over 36 years.
However, the company has run into a bit of a brick wall in the last few years as the rating has begun to dip at an alarming rate. It has been exponentially worse over the last year as the company is consistently pulling in numbers that are significantly lower than they once were.
While it was going up against the NBA Playoffs, the Apr. 29 edition of Monday Night Raw drew its lowest non-holiday viewership ever and even dipped below two million viewers for the first time ever on a non-holiday.
The scariest part for the company is not that the ratings are suddenly so low, but it is that the ratings have been dipping over the last decade, every year seemingly outdoing themselves.
Most television shows would love to have two million viewers, but this is still a company that is trending in the wrong direction.
Right now, WWE’s one saving grace is the impending Fox deal that will move SmackDown and hopefully boost the ratings as a result. While that might get an initial boost, just changing the channel won’t be a long-term solution.
Thus, I came up with two potential solutions for WWE to consider that might be able to boomerang the ratings back in a positive direction.