Damn it, he just doesn't learn

[Tsaalyo Phoenix]

WWE is sending gift baskets money themed baskets to promote McMahon's Million Dollar Mania. Newsday.com reporter Alfonso Castillo reports that the gift basket he received included three t-shirts with Vince McMahon's head on a dollar bill, currency-themed candies, $4.94 in cash. For a full list of the items included in the gift basket, check out Newsday.com.

WWE will be giving away a grand prize of $300,000 to the winner of the McMahon's Million Dollar Mania this week, according to the official rules. There will be another prize of $175,000, another for $174,984, a fourth prize of $125,000, a fifth prize of $100,000, a sixth prize of $75,000, a seventh prize of $50,000, and a booby prize of $16.

I'm officially declaring a 2.X RAW rating for this.

 

[chessarmy]

The money give away thing is pretty stupid. Why don't they just put on a better show to try and get ratings?

 

[Tsaalyo Phoenix]

Vince would rather give away millions of dollars randomly than push someone besides his son in law. :shifty:

 

[xtremebadass]

Vince always thinks he knows what's good for ratings, I am not surprised if he comes out and says he will strip on LIVE TV because the guy thinks he is God, I wouldn't put it past the man.

These gimmicks don't bring in ratings, how about they go back to their roots, you know...actual wrestling? That might be an idea worth looking over

 

[Hometown Kid]

lets just make a little pretend card here...

HHH promo: 10:00
Melena vs. Beth vs. Mickie(c) womens title 9:00
Cryme Tyme vs. Rhodes and Holly(c) 12:00
Jericho's highlight reel 15:00
Chris Jericho(c) vs HBK 15:00
John Cena vs. Umaga 13:00
JBL squash: 1:00
Mr. Kennedy vs HHH(c): 20:00

That would give them enough time for commercials and rebounds and whatnot...would you rather see that card or the one they put on Monday? Maybe good wrestling could bring in ratings...

 

[OsamaHussian]

I don't understand this at all. RAW which in less than a year has seen viewership "drop" by more than 25%.. However their shows are still rated in the cable top ten weekly, ratings as a whole FOR ALL OF TELEVISION have taken a substantial hit since the writers strike.

Fine, if everything is down it's expected RAW, Smackdown, ECW and that joke of a show Dixie Carter owns trying to be ECW-lite, all the ratings would be down.... and are.

While I understand how TV and Cable ratings are compiled, I don't understand why TIVO'd viewings do not count towards final numbers. I watch all my wrestling on TIVO (well some of the time anyways) the same for many of my friends, so why aren't DVR/TIVO'd recordings included in final numbers?

I would bet that the overall number of viewers for RAW isn't down so much as the way people watch the show and how it's rating is compiled is where the true fluctuation is.

House Show numbers are strong, live TV events are still carrying strong numbers, it's just the TV ratings that have dived across the board.

 

[Kaedon]

There are way to record TiVO and DVR ratings, it's just not the most consistent thing. Technology is catching up though.

 

[MikeRaw]

Raw ratings may not be as bad as people think...

Firstly, check out Raw ratings over the years...
I did, and based on those, in the early 90's Raw was getting 2.1's is they were lucky... Then, in mid '98, they all of a sudden jumped one week from 3.9 to 6.4, and until 2003, they stayed above at least 5.0..... In 2003-2005(mid 2005) they average 3.5-4.0's and I thought we were getting a pretty good product in 2003, 2004, and 2005...
So nowadays they are average 3.3-ish, sometimes higher, sometimes lower... But also, alot of people (as osama said) use DVR/Tivo, so I would add another .5 to the ratings (since they dont count towards the normal ratings)... So if Raw averages (which it is, except a few bad weeks in the past couple of months) around 3.4, that is very close to what they were doing in that era of 2003-2005...
So anyways, yes, we know the actual product isnt as good as it should be, but the viewership isnt like its all of a sudden sliding downhill and wwe is dying... The ratings have been like this for 5 years now... Yes, the product hasnt been as good as 2003-2005 lately, but Im just saying, keep the ratings, and the product seperate. Because you could have an amazing show, and still only get 3.0's, that doesnt mean the show was bad (it just means it got not great viewership)
So ya, Im not trying to be a wwe sheep and say that the show is amazing, but keep in mind that ratings for Raw have been like this since 2003ish... And btw, ratings on all of tv are down, for some reason, tv isnt being as watched as it used to nowadays...

 

[Soulpower]

I hate the DVR excuse! All it means is that RAW isn't important enough (Or good enough) for some people, so they DVR the show and they watch something that doesn't totally blow!

 

[OsamaHussian]

I've been thinking about all the hotshot angles Vince has done to generate publicity: Money giveaways, house giveaways (remember the first In Your House? ROFLMAO!) necrophilia angles, suicide, drug addiction, incest, homosexuality and gay marriages, murde, magic, voodooo, fire, gun play, vehicular assault, faking death, raping the legacy of Eddie (RIP), crucifixion, a parade of sleazy bimbos in a "Diva Search," sex addiction, gang wars, the Japanese mafia, the botched "Invasion," boss vs. workin' joe (was greatness the first time with Vince vs. Stone Cold, but after it became a formula for every wrestler's ascention into the main event, it has long since become gratingly overdone). There's probably more but this is enough to make me sit here and think about just how STUPID this stuff has been the last few years. All that effort to get out of showing us actual WRESTLING. There are very few stones left uncovered for stupid angles. Maybe bestiliaty will be his next big brainchild for getting viewers to come back. To me, it's at the point that if I'm channel surfing on a Monday, I'll catch a couple minutes of RAW, roll my eyes as I watch Vince calling someone's house and realize that this is their idea for EXCITING WRESTLING ACTION.

Hey, WWE, if you read this, looking for a reason to bitch about the internet: I want WRESTLING. Not your homogenized, everybody-wrestles-the-same WWE style that you insist your workers use (because, for one thing, I'm watching the same matches I saw ten years ago, just with different faces and secondly, MMA exposes WWE style as ridiculously unrealistic), but good, exciting, WRESTLING. Maybe you dismiss our views because we express over the internet what we would like to see, but we've been calling for more wrestling for years, and your ratings have steadily declined for years. Think about it. How hard is it to see the correlation?

Storylines? Yeah, okay. They're great, but they don't have to be about a guy getting his penis chopped off, or million dollar giveaways. Sometimes, there are good ones, and you do get better about them, namely, in my opinion, the interaction between guys like Cena, Triple H, Orton, Michaels and Jericho. That's good stuff. And there's good wrestling. But it doesn't have to be about a few guys doing the same things every week. Stories? Okay. Just stop insulting your viewers. And remember, it's about good wrestling.

 

[chessarmy]

^ Damn, now if only Vince Mcmahon himself can read that...

 

[Chuck Taylor's Grenade]

Oh come on man. Choppy choppy your peepee was awesome.

 

[J]

I hate the DVR excuse! All it means is that RAW isn't important enough (Or good enough) for some people, so they DVR the show and they watch something that doesn't totally blow!

...Or it could mean that someone is to busy to catch it at the regular time...So they DVR it and watch it at a time when there not busy...I DVR wrestling all the time...Just makes it easier when I'm busy...

 

[MikeRaw]

I hate the DVR excuse! All it means is that RAW isn't important enough (Or good enough) for some people, so they DVR the show and they watch something that doesn't totally blow!

Dude, I dvr stuff as im watchin git, incase I want to watch it another time... DVR's werent around back in the early 2000's so everyone watched it on tv, and it counted for the ratings. But now they are around,a nd if people use them, it doesnt count...
Thats not an excuse, its a fact. People who say it makes a big difference, are grasping at straws and making excuses, but it does make a bit of a difference... And like I said, if Raw gets a 3.3 now, and all the DVRs can make it 3.4, then that is close to the same ratings they got from 2003-2005.

 

[Tsaalyo Phoenix]

...Or it could mean that someone is to busy to catch it at the regular time...So they DVR it and watch it at a time when there not busy...I DVR wrestling all the time...Just makes it easier when I'm busy...

Not necessarily. I'll DVR a show if I absolutely have to, but if i'm looking forward to this week's show, i'll blow off other commitments if I have to. The number of people who really really want to see a show but DVR it anyway because something totally unavoidable has come up is miniscule. For most DVRers, it's "Hmm... should I stay in and watch RAW, or should I go to my friend's to hang out in his basement going through his sister's panties while he scorns me?" If RAW can't promise a good enough show to be deemed more important to watch as it happens than going to get drunk on a weekday, the ratings drop. DVR is not an excuse. It just proves that what the show promises that week makes it not worth the time to watch.