{"id":1936,"date":"2015-10-29T08:19:54","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T13:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2015-10-29T10:00:58","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T15:00:58","slug":"wwe-q3-why-raw-is-not-shifting-away-from-three-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2015\/10\/29\/wwe-q3-why-raw-is-not-shifting-away-from-three-hours\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE Q3 &#8211; Why Raw is not shifting away from Three Hours"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-729601889\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>WWE&#8217;s long-term business\u00a0will be driven by TV Revenue and WWE Network subscriber growth. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/vip.pwtorch.com\/2015\/10\/29\/wwe-q3-latest-wwe-network-count-full-break-down-of-network-biz-future\/\">with WWE unable to provide long-term guidance on Network growth<\/a>, the business&#8217;s future is dependent on the TV segment, which has guaranteed revenue growth in the next 2-4 years due to new domestic and international contracts.<\/p>\n<p>A major contributor to the guaranteed revenue increase\u00a0is that extra hour of Raw, which is licensed not only domestically on\u00a0USA Network, but to numerous international TV partners.<\/p>\n<p>WWE disclosed in their <a href=\"http:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/wwe-reports-strong-third-quarter-123000621.html\" target=\"_blank\">quarterly earnings report<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Company&#8217;s seven largest distribution agreements account for revenue that is expected to increase from $130 million in 2014 to approximately $235 million in 2018, thereby providing approximately $105 million of revenue growth over this period (subject to counterparty risk). The Company projects that it will realize nearly $45 million of this growth in 2015.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The key to why Raw will not be going away from three hours is as follows:\u00a0&#8220;The remaining $60 million is expected to be <strong>recognized over the subsequent three years and include annual escalations over that period<\/strong>. Accordingly, revenue from these agreements is expected to reach approximately $190 million in 2016.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The forecasted pattern is $130 million in 2014, $175 million in 2015, $190 million in 2016, and $235 million by 2018.<\/p>\n<p>WWE does have other programming in the mix, such as Smackdown, Total Divas, and Main Event\/Superstars distributed internationally, but the bulk of revenue growth will be from their flagship show, Raw, which has struggled creatively\u00a0carrying\u00a0a weekly, three-hour show.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisers do not appear to be concerned, though, as WWE disclosed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snl.com\/Cache\/1500077288.PDF?Y=&amp;O=PDF&amp;D=&amp;fid=1500077288&amp;T=&amp;iid=4121687\" target=\"_blank\">in their conference call presentation<\/a> that &#8220;37 new advertisers were secured for WWE programming following NBCUniversal&#8217;s Upfront (presentation).&#8221;<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-1327789282\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>&#8211; Within the Third Quarter, <a href=\"http:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/wwe-reports-strong-third-quarter-123000621.html\" target=\"_blank\">WWE reported<\/a>\u00a0TV Revenue of $65.2 million, up 55 percent from $42.2 million in the same period in Q3-2014.<\/p>\n<p>WWE said the growth was &#8220;driven by the renegotiation of key domestic and international distribution agreements, the largest of which became effective in the fourth quarter 2014 and the first quarter 2015.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>WWE added that more episodes of Total Divas and the additional &#8220;Tough Enough&#8221; season\u00a0on USA Network contributed to the year-over-year revenue increase.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Through the first nine months of 2015, TV Revenue is $175.5 million, up 39 percent from the first nine months of 2014. This includes revenue from the new TV\u00a0contracts (forecasted at $175 million for the entire year) and existing TV contracts.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, &#8220;Revenues from the Company&#8217;s Media division increased 27 percent to $318.8 million from $250.4 million primarily due to the escalation of television rights fees and the ramp up of <i id=\"yui_3_18_1_1_1446125069619_2945\">WWE Network<\/i>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-207004402\"><div id=\"pwtor-3807974788\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>WWE&#8217;s long-term business\u00a0will be driven by TV Revenue and WWE Network subscriber growth. However, with WWE unable to provide long-term guidance on Network growth, the business&#8217;s future is dependent on the TV segment, which has <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2015\/10\/29\/wwe-q3-why-raw-is-not-shifting-away-from-three-hours\/\" title=\"WWE Q3 &#8211; Why Raw is not shifting away from Three Hours\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[96,71,251,112],"class_list":["post-1936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news_wwe","tag-raw","tag-wwe","tag-wwe-network","tag-wwe-raw"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Rawfire_3x2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1943,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions\/1943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}