The market’s enthusiasm for WWE stems largely from its lucrative TV contracts, combined with its early success in direct-to-consumer streaming TV apps. In 2014 the company made a risky move, deciding essentially to cannibalize its traditional pay-per-view business. Instead of paying their cable companies one-time fees to see WWE’s marquee events—say, $44.99 for the Royal Rumble—fans would be encouraged to subscribe to a streaming video service, the WWE Network, and pay a monthly fee. After some early turbulence, the move is paying off. Roughly 1.5 million people now hand over $9.99 a month for the WWE Network, making it the 11th-most-popular streaming video service in the U.S., according to Parks Associates, and the second-most-popular, after Major League Baseball’s, in the “sports-related” category.
From the article "WWE Is Laying the Smackdown on the World" by Felix Gillette and Kim Bhasin.
“Pay-TV providers want to retain subscribers, so they want to make sure that you stay inside their ecosystem,” says Brett Sappington, a media analyst at Parks Associates. “If you don’t have a reason t...
“In the past year we keep seeing more and more services coming up, more niche services,” said Glenn Hower, an analyst with market research firm Parks Associates. There’s Netflix, which has been str...
Distributing its video out to its various websites could be a boon to Yahoo. Parks Associates' Brett Sappington predicted that traditional magazines may make a leap to presenting their content via onl...
Not only are consumers saying video aggregators are simple to navigate across, but they also value having a single bill for all their apps. OTT bundling is a key source of revenue for pay TV and other...
