{"id":12595,"date":"2019-05-20T23:00:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T22:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=12595"},"modified":"2019-05-20T18:57:39","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T17:57:39","slug":"tv-the-promised-land-of-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/20\/tv-the-promised-land-of-wrestling\/","title":{"rendered":"TV, the promised land of wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Ciaran James@<a href=\"http:\/\/TheCiaranJames \">TheCiaranJames <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the space of two weeks the\nlandscape of the professional wrestling business has shifted dramatically, from\nAEW\u2019s official TV announcement to the rumours of WWE moving to BT in the United\nKingdom. TV offers maximum exposure, even now in the era of YouTube and\nFacebook the opportunity to advertise your product via television is still\ncraved. AEW the brainchild of the \u2018Elite\u2019 and businessman Tony Khan, who last\nweek officially announced their agreement with TNT, a deal which we all\nexpected but is now set in concrete. The company has also made an announcement\nthat their \u2018All or Nothing\u2019 PPV will be available on ITV Box Office in the\nUnited Kingdom, as well as their weekly show to be broadcast on ITV4. This Is\ngreat news for the entire wrestling community, for the fans it offers an\nalternative mainstream product for us all to tune in to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following the AEW announcement rumours\nappeared online on 16.05.2019, via the Telegraph that WWE would be leaving Sky\nlater this year and joining BT. This came as a huge shock to many fans, who\nsince childhood have tuned into Sky Sports to watch both Raw and Smackdown,\nafter 30 years of service this was not what people expected. This news has no\nlink to AEW, but in the week of television deals this is another huge\ndevelopment in the wrestling business and WWE\u2019s ongoing portfolio. Sky has been\na big supporter of WWE and the reason the company has such a big presence in\nthe United Kingdom, the two have been hand in hand for over three decades, this\nwas a shock to all. When you sit back and look at the situation though you can\nunderstand why Sky grew disgruntled, shortly after signing their most recent\ndeal, the WWE Network fully came online in the UK at a price of \u00a39.99. The\nprice to watch WWE\u2019s entire catalogue and new PPV\u2019s was a drop in the ocean\ncompared to a Sky subscription and the monthly PPV cost of \u00a314.95 &#8211; \u00a319.95.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the rumours are true concerning\nBT\u2019s interest in taking on WWE programming, then surely, they envisage a bright\nfuture with the now not so creative company. Those who have worked for Sky on\nWWE programming must be aware of the current downturn in the product, they no\ndoubt follow the viewing figures in the US and the negative reaction on social\nmedia. Maybe the thinking heads at Sky don\u2019t want to be associated with the company\nthat have formed a relationship with Saudi Arabia and have a warped idea of\ndiscipline, especially where Lars Sullivan is concerned. Sky have their\ncustomers, they are obviously comfortable losing WWE with their current\nportfolio, and in some cases why hold on to programming that the audience is\nturning off. BT are building their programming, they currently dominate the\nEuropean Football coverage in the United Kingdom, they have a selection of the\nbest games form the English Premier League, UFC, so much more and possibly WWE.\nThe question is, will viewers pay another subscription to watch wrestling when\nthe Network is available and where now in 2019 so many sites live stream Raw,\nSmackdown and PPV\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The AEW\/ITV agreement could in time\nmake AEW the number one wrestling company in the United Kingdom, ITV4 is\navailable in a lot more homes than what WWE was, and BT could be. There is the\npotential that AEW could draw in the lapsed WWE fans, plus those who followed\nTNA at it\u2019s best and who are now looking for a competitive wrestling company\nminus the PG rated content of WWE. I think that most lapsed fans still want to\ntune into WWE and see it thrive, they want to see talented wrestlers work great\nmatches, have character develop and absorbing feuds. With WWE we no longer get the\nslow build, most wrestlers compete week in week out on TV, so by the time we\nget to PPV the feud has been diluted and the viewer is tired. The only WWE brand\nthat works well is NXT, it has the slow build, character development and huge\npayoffs at TakeOver events, Triple H has the correct formula at Full Sail. Right\nnow, AEW executives are saying all the right things, signing fan favourites and\nappearing to understand what the wrestling fan wants. Only time will tell to see\nif AEW really is the promotion the audience want it to be. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ciaran James@TheCiaranJames In the space of two weeks the landscape of the professional wrestling business has shifted dramatically, from AEW\u2019s official TV announcement to the rumours of WWE moving [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1019,28,2,185],"tags":[1020],"class_list":["post-12595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aew","category-editorials","category-featured","category-wwe","tag-wwe-aew"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-3h9","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/63ed8-15580172839447-800.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12601,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595\/revisions\/12601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}