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VIP EXCLUSIVE COLUMN - Early-release from PWTorch Newsletter #996...

"McNeill Factor"
Newsletter Headline: "WWE Need To Deliver 24/7 Satisfaction"
Originally published: October 31, 2007
From Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #996

Ever since World Wrestling Entertainment started its on demand "WWE 24/7" monthly service in 2004, it has been a hit with serious wrestling fans. 24/7 costs $7.95 a month and features about 50 hours worth of pro wrestling content per month. While it isn't available on satellite television, and not all American cable companies carry 24/7, it has been hard to find subscribers who aren't thrilled with the material that's presented.  

For example, if you subscribed in October, you not only to see five different wrestling pay-per-views from the past, including July's Great American Bash and WCW's Halloween Havoc 1989, but you also saw two episodes each of Raw and Nitro from March 1997, two episodes of ECW from 1996, two episodes of NWA World Championship Wrestling from 1985, an episode of Championship Wrestling from Florida, an episode of World Class Championship Wrestling, the entire three-disc Tombstone DVD featuring The Undertaker, one old WWE house show each from the Boston Garden, Philadelphia Spectrum and Madison Square Garden, two episodes of Prime Time Wrestling from 1987, two episodes of Tuesday Night Titans from 1986, a "WWE Hall of Fame" special on the Wild Samoans, and ten bonus matches from throughout wrestling history.

While this seems like a sweetheart of a deal, the 24/7 service isn't all that impressive. The three major on demand services in North American cable are HBO, Howard Stern and Showtime. While all three of them cost more than 24/7, they also contain a great deal more content. Heck, there are over fifty hours worth of movies alone on HBO On Demand.

Sure, WWE 24/7 is a specialty service, and it won't appeal to any non-wrestling fans in the audience. That makes it even more imperative for World Wrestling Entertainment to over-deliver to the few fans able to subscribe. What's more, this would not be difficult to pull off. All WWE has to do is add a little more wrestling content in order to sweeten the pot. Here are some simple ideas for additional material that will entertain potential subscribers without busting the budget.

Jim Cornette [photo by Wade Keller (c) PWTorch]

Legends Roundtable: As silly as it may seem to outsiders, one of the most popular bits on 24/7 has been the "Legends Roundtable" hosted by Jim Ross. It is a simple formula. Ross, Michael Hayes and a few "legends" from within the company sit around and shoot the bull on a selected topic. The promotion has shot several months worth of a show at a time in order to save on costs. There hasn't been a Roundtable segment for a couple months, and they've been missed. The good news is that Ross and Hayes have already shot the next set of episodes, with the unique crew of Mick Foley, Pat Patterson and Tazz sitting in. However, there's no excuse for missing months, especially when the program is so inexpensive to produce.

That '70s Stuff: The "Legends" section of 24/7 seems a little thin on occasion, and there's no reason for that to happen. WWE 24/7 delivers a lot of programming for fans of eighties and nineties wrestling, and that's good. But we've seen very little WWE archive footage from the 1970's, and that's a shame. WWE has thousands of hours of its own footage from the 1970's, including the Madison Square Garden shows that aired on HBO beginning in June 1973. The McMahons also have the rights to other wrestling footage from the decade, including material from Jim Crockett Promotions, Stampede Wrestling, AWA and Championship Wrestling from Florida. An additional hour of seventies wrestling footage per month would help satiate the older fans and amateur historians.           

The Giant Fist: The main WWE brands are represented on WWE 24/7 with old episodes of Raw and ECW. However, there's not even a sign of WWE Smackdown on 24/7, and that's a pity. WWE's latest contribution to network television has been on the air since 1999. Heck, the Monday Night Wars series is already up to 1997. With eight years worth of Smackdown episodes to draw from, there's no reason why World Wrestling Entertainment couldn't drop two episodes per month. That's four additional hours of programming which costs nothing to put together.

Cornette Vision: Paul Heyman left World Wrestling Entertainment under bad terms, and WWE 24/7 still celebrates the ECW brand and brings us two hours of ECW television from the Heyman era. That's fine. But WWE also has the rights to footage from two promotions that were booked by Jim Cornette, and haven't done much with either set of tapes. Cornette not only used to own part of Ohio Valley Wrestling, WWE's lead developmental territory, but he also owned and operated Smoky Mountain Wrestling during the 1990's. Smoky Mountain wasn't a large group, but it worked in tandem with WWE from 1993 through its demise in 1995. There were a ton of well-known performers who worked for SMW, including Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker and Mick Foley. The show looks at least as professional as the 1980's studio wrestling programs we've seen on 24/7. Let's add one episode of Smoky Mountain per month to the WWE 24/7 schedule.

Ohio Valley Wrestling might not be WWE's first choice for programming, given that it features inexperienced wrestlers working a style different from the "sports entertainment" type of show featured on Raw and Smackdown. On the other hand......

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