Ryan Carse's Dissertation: "Is Professional Wrestling Coverage a Form of Journalism?"

While I've been producing Wrestlenomics Radio episodes, one thing I've consistently sought out is people who've written academic research and detailed pieces about professional wrestling. This has included John Lister on ECW and British Wrestling, Bryan Alvarez on the Death of WCW, Paul Fontaine on calculating MMA Draws, Matthew Timmons on Kayfabemetrics, David Bixenspan on the myriad of Ultimate Warrior Lawsuits, Matt Farmer on Biggest Draws in History and History of Portland Wrestling and Brandon Quinn on his UFC Buys Thesis (among many others).

After my most recent show (with the excellent Dylan Hales), a listener from Dublin tweeted me a link to an interesting piece by Ryan Carse. It was Carse's Journalism dissertation at the University of Chester on the topic, "IS PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING COVERAGE A FORM OF JOURNALISM?" which was completed in April 2014. I was intrigued.

Today I finally had a chance to sit down and read the whole piece. I think it raises some interesting questions and presents some fascinating findings.  Here's a quote from his abstract:

The result of the study established that whilst professional wrestling coverage may not be as extensively covered within the mainstream media, the basic rules of good reporting must still apply and therefore can be deemed a form of journalism.

Carse's research quotes from many professional wrestling writers (David Shoemaker, Dave Meltzer, Findlay Martin, Phil Mushnick, John Pollock, Aubrey Sitterson, Bill Apter, Sam Gascoyne and so froth). As with any high-minded piece on the topic professional wrestling, it includes the obligatory (translated from the French) snippets from Roland Barthes' 1957 essay, "The World of Wrestling".  However, for me, the most interesting section was the results of a 1,500+ respondents survey answered by Reddit's /r/SquaredCircle readers.

Ryan's dissertation set out to research (and answer) two central questions:

1: Does the mainstream media have a negative connotation of professional wrestling?

2: Should professional wrestling journalism be treated any differently to other sports journalism?

Here were his hypothesis going into the study:

H1: Wrestling fans and journalists will believe that the mainstream media have a negative connotation of professional wrestling.

H2: Wrestling fans will believe that professional wrestling shouldn't be treated any differently to other sports journalism.

It's an interesting pair theses.

(I aim to talk to Ryan about it more on an upcoming episode of Wrestlenomics radio, but at first blush, I was not sold on the second point- that professional wrestling should be part of sports journalism. I was a reassured when found that both Sitterson and Gascoyne, neither whom I was not familiar with before reading this piece, agreed with me on this. As a non-sports fan, I can't speak in depth about how sports are covered by others, but my bias is towards researching and understanding the entertainment and business aspects of professional wrestling. I feel what I'm doing isn't really sports journalism. But this topic of wrestling journalism/sports journalism split the interviewees, with Pollock/Apter on the other side of the coin. It also split the survey respondents, as you will see.)

The reddit survey results were captivating. Having occasionally posted on there, it's clear that it's an active place that appeared to holds some pretty preconceived notions about "wrestling newz". I wouldn't consider this project to have been a statistically random sampling by any means, but it's an intriguing glimpse into the subforum's population.

WWE's Corporate webpage notes their viewership is "36% female, 25% under the age of 18". The reddit survey was "96% male with 89% 18-34 years old". By contrast, I often refer people to the 2013 Scarbourgh research which found that WWE's audience of adults was "63% male, 37% female" with only slightly over a third of the WWE fans having "any college education" and half "earning less than $50,000 annually" (with a third "earning less than $30,000 annually"). I believe that while the reddit sample is likely skewed, it's doesn't meant that it's irrelevant. If anything, it gives you great insight into who is frequenting and reading the SquaredCircle forum.

Carse's Findings included:

• Only 40% of participants saying they do not buy or read any newspapers on a regular basis (I thought this would be much higher)
• At least one participant's consistent of "the entire movie script for the film 'Bee Movie'"
• 97% of the survey respondents said they "read news on professional wrestling" but yet only 4% said "they currently have a paid subscription to a premium news outlet" such as the Wrestling Observer.
• 51% indicated their primary source for "news on professional wrestling" was through Wrestling forums with "Copy & Paste sites" representing 22%. Paid subscription to WON represented less than 2%.
• Less than 5% of respondents thought the Wrestling Observer was "not very reputable". In fact, over 70% of participants viewed the news from the Wrestling Observer as "very reputable" (near the top or at the top in a five point scale). Conversely, only a third (33%) of respondents considered news from the top news source, wrestling forums, to be "very reputable". 
• 92% did believe that mainstream media has a negative connotation of professional wrestling. (H1)
• 50% ("dead even split") thought that wrestling journalism should be treated differently to other sports journalism. (H2)
• Key words for responses to why so many believed that the mainstream media had a negative connotation of professional wrestling included "Benoit" (8%), "Steroids" (8%) and "Fake" (35%).

Carse prints several responses to the open-answer questions he included in his survey. However, there was one response which contained a passage which I categorically disagree with:

"It is scripted and therefore can not be covered in the same way. When one looks at sports journalism, you want to see statistics to gain an insight into what may unfold. Looking at statistics in wrestling to gain a clearer picture of what is happening is entirely pointless. It needs to be covered in the same way the rest of show business is." (Male, 25-34 years old, United States, Diehard wrestling fan.)

Harumph!

As the standard bearer of #wrestlenomics, I must carry forth the notion that statistics in wrestling are not pointless. There's a lot we can learn. Statistics reveal how people's subjective ratings systems are influenced by match length, location and context. Statistics reveal which wrestlers have worked the hardest, the longest, and the most. Statistics reveal which wrestlers are (and are not) meaningful to making promoters money. Statistics reveal which wrestlers have the most potential and least opportunity. Statistics reveal which business measures are improving and collapsing and what talent programs are affecting that. We can learn a lot about the inner-working of professional wrestling through the lens of statistics. The temerity of that respondent! Simply put, as Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Statistics teach us much about the history of professional wrestling and what worked and what did not. Moving on.

I do recommend people take the time to read Ryan's dissertation. He's also begun a beautiful online magazine "The Tag Rope" which I highly recommend people check out. I look forward to him going me on a future podcast.

On the pernicious topic of International WWE Network Growth

It's natural to be a skeptic.

When you're evaluating a business, it's important to collect enough evidence that you can explore several possible explanations. Still, you've also got to be willing to wade through the murk and look for Occam's Razor.

Covering the launch and growth of the WWE Network has been an exciting and interesting journey.  From the start, it was clear that the venture was going to be expensive proposition. There was a lot of risk involved because WWE was cannibalizing a profitable stream of revenue for a very uncertain future.

What do we know?

We know that when the service launched, several hundred thousand people signed up, at least to try a free week. We know that the on 3/31/14, there was about 495,000 WWE Network subscribers and a week later it had grown by nearly 35%. For Wrestlemania,  WWE announced 667,287 WWE Network subscribers. We know that the service is not technically available in Canada or Internationally, but we've heard many anecdotal reports that hardcore fans are still able to access the WWE Network. We know that since the WWE Network has launched, we've seen the non-US portion of PPV buys (which was worth more than $16M last year), significantly drop since the WWE Network launched.

We could be seeing a drop in WWE popularity (after all, Rock wasn't wrestling on this Wrestlemania and Brock didn't compete on this year's Extreme Rules) and WWE attendance numbers continue to stagnant and fall. We could be seeing a rise in WWE PPV piracy. Or we could just be seeing people naturally migrating to a cheaper technological solution.

It seems surprising that both the survey done by the Wrestling Observer website and the informal survey that we did on launch day revealed between 15%-20% of the WWE Network users indicating they lived outside of the US. It seems surprising that both the estimate I calculated and the estimate that Dave Meltzer calculated looking at the drop in non-US Wrestlemania buys suggested that between 15%-20% of WWE Network subscribers were from outside of the US. When I see the same information coming up again and again from different analysts, I start to believe there's something there.

Still, I encourage everyone to go back and re-read what WWE expected to happen with their Network.  In particular you'll notice that Phase I international countries were only ever estimated at a quarter of the size of the US market. Even in their wildest predictions, WWE never believed that International Growth was going to be a financial panacea for the WWE Network. It was, at best, a pleasant companion to what was supposed to be a strong domestic foundation.

Related Reading:

• D. Meltzer: WON Network Numbers (6/30/2014) 
• D. Meltzer: WON Trying to Figure out the WWE Network Worldwide (6/9/2014)
• C. Harrington: WhatCulture WM30 Buys has shocking Implications for WWE Network (6/3/2014)
• C. Harrington: WhatCulture Calculating Global Demand for the WWE Network (5/24/2014)

Another lousy Forbes article on WWE

Yesterday I had a conversation yesterday on twitter about the latest Forbes article on WWE. Basically, someone tried to correlate who was WWE Champion with WWE Financials.

 Rich of Voices of Wrestling (@voiceswrestling), Aaron Taube of Business Insider (@aptaube) and I (@mookieghana) discussed about how disappointed we were with this sort of piece. Personally, it bugs me that Forbes lets half-baked stuff like this run on their website. Maybe I'm just annoyed because Forbes talked up Laura Martin's insane projections for WWE without recognizing how little she seemed to understand of how the network even functioned (hence the need to title my response, "Needham's WWE Analysis Is Grossly Overestimating Future Revenue").

.@mookieghana have you had a chance to read this: http://t.co/66QTcZhhdN? What do you think?
— Voices of Wrestling (@voiceswrestling) July 2, 2014

If you want to look at specific indicators - House Show Attendance, Raw Quarter-hour Ratings, PPV Buys - and correlate them to who was in major title pictures during that time, I think it makes a lot of sense - at least that you can investigate and it may be meaningful.

If you want to look at general WWE financials (here's my quick breakdown here), it really doesn't make any sense to focus so myopically. And that's not hard to understand why - WWE receives escalating TV rights payments regardless of who is the champ in accordance with their contracts. WWE gets Videogame Royalties at a certain time of the year (and this year's drop had a lot to do with the new publisher more than even declining sales). Wrestlemania is usually in Q2 (and there's lots of corresponding noise with that). They're going to sell a bunch more stuff for WWEShopZone during the last quarter of the year (aka Christmas). They have a very erratic schedule for receiving revenue from WWE Studios. Hell, they made more money last quarter in Home Entertainment (up $3.5M Year-over-year) than Live Events (up $0.9M Year-over-year) because jargon like "recognition of minimum guarantees” and “higher current sell-through rates than expected”. That sort of variation shows how "who was champ in Q1?" had next-to-nothing to do that quarter's financial results.

Chris Smith's Forbes article strikes me as woefully insufficient for a serious financial website/magazine.

This isn't the first (nor will it be the last time) that Forbes is going to seriously disappoint me when it comes to covering the business of WWE.  Remember the nonsensical "article" about how launching the WWE Network was going to force NBCU to give them more money? I ranted about that piece back in January.

The writer could have chosen to break out specific segments of WWE revenue. The data is all there.
The whole idea of what is "best for business" for the WWE is really tricky. For instance, as pessimistic as I can come across about the WWE Network, I still think the premise is a good idea for WWE. They're a pro-wrestling company with a limited base of regular full-price PPV purchasers, who completely own their own IP and have a virtual monopoly in their industry. I believe that in several years, they'll be thrilled they got into space. However, right now they sacrificed a large and profitable revenue stream (PPV) for so service that is not close to breaking even. That's a bold choice, to say the least.

If you listen to host of the Bernstein Future of Media Summit interviewing WWE CFO George Barrios, a lot of companies want to do something like an OTT network, but the challenges have overwhelmed/scared others away.

Did they WWE launch it at the right time? Debatable, especially since it clearly impacted their NBCU negotiations (something Vince McMahon himself admitted). On the flipside, it only made sense to launch with a strong hook and Wrestlemania only comes but once a year.

What about the market expectations they've circulated? Telling people that 60M US households have an "affinity" for WWE content and that 14M watch weekly (when you count every replay and include anyone who watches 6 minutes of programming) is misleading at the very least.

The stock shot up. The stock shot down. Were there speculators manipulating the stock price?

Do these things have to do with whether or Cena should be champ? I think it's a peripheral conversation, but certainly not a true driver.

Was spending (and eventually losing) millions with WWE Films/WWE Studios "best for business"? Not really, but perhaps the new model will pan out.

If we want to have the "should Cena be the champ?" conversation, I think we have to specify what elements of WWE's business plan we want to look at when we say "best for business". Are we including.... Live attendance? PPV buys (not really so much a thing)? WWE Network subscriptions? WWE TV Rights Deals? Licensing deals? Merchandise sales? Ability to get crossover attention and publicity? Ability to market stars to sponsors? Cena as the face of the WWE certainly plays a role in all of these. But his presence as champion isn't the sole, monolithic driver.
Honestly, I saw the piece on Tuesday night and shook my head. I hoped that no one was going to notice it and for a few days, no one did. I didn't want to be mad hatter who was shouting in the comments section about how ludicrous (and inadequate) the piece was. But now, that's who I've become.

LINK: "Is Making John Cena WWE Champion What's Really Best For Business?" by Chris Smith

Stagnation in the WWE

This month, over at Whatculture, I tackled the topic of STAGNATION in three separate pieces looking at WWE:

• 6/03/14 What's behind stagnant Live Event trends?
• 6/14/14 Is WWE TV becoming Stagnant?
• 6/17/14 Has WWE Killed their PPV Business?

Last two weeks of Wrestlenomics Radio have been fun.

This week I talked about the recent Talent Cuts with Rob McCarron of ShakeThemRopes.com and then interviewed Mark Coale about Midsouth Wrestling, Comics and his Russian Flag Burial Edition of the Odessa Steps Magazine.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/indeedwrestling/2014/06/14/wrestlenomics-radio--black-Thursday

Last week I spoke with Brendan Quinn about his UFC/WWE Buys Thesis and discussed how the WWE Network could improve revenues.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/indeedwrestling/2014/06/07/wrestlenomics-radio--researching-follies

If you're interested in more detail about "Black Thursday" future endeavors, I heartily recommend Joe Lanza's piece from VOW.

Lastly, I attended Monday Night Raw (6/9/14).  You can see my ringside photos here.

Indeed.
Chris Harrington
chris.harrington@gmail.com

WWE Network is more international than previously thought

With WWE's disclosure yesterday that Wrestlemania 30 had 690,000 "traditional" worldwide PPV buys, I explored the implications in a short piece published yesterday afternoon. In short, it's very reasonable to conclude that up to 20% of the WWE Network subscriber based as of WM was from non-US customers.

Also published was the first part of a series where I'm looking at the WWE business for signs of stagnation. The first installment focuses on concerning trends in attendance, particularly international attendance and the reality that unless WWE changes something, Live event revenue is likely to be flat or down in 2014.

Lastly, I had a great interview with British Wrestling Historian, Author and fan John Lister on this week's Wrestlenomics Podcast where we talk about everything from the prospects of WWE Network Global Growth to his book on the original ECW (Turning the Tables) to British Wrestling (including the infamous Big Daddy debate).

Stay strong. Follow me on twitter (@mookieghana) and read my latest at Whatculture.

Latest WWE Business Analysis & Audio

I published two pieces recently about the WWE Network:

• 5/24/14 Calculating Global Demand of the WWE Network
• 5/28/14 WWE's Network Dilemma

Basically, the first piece outlined my economic argument that Global Demand for the WWE Network (at best) just puts them in the break-even territory and they should focus on growing profitability. The second piece looks at the three options that WWE has: grow demand, raise price or cut costs.

I also published a WhatCulture piece about the Pro-wrestlers who appeared in the most Video Games which was a follow-up to a 80+ game survey I did in conjunction with Joe Gagne's Funtime Arcade but I screwed up the roster for WWE 2K14 so now I'm being raked over the coals in the comment section. That's to be expected, but whenever someone calls me "the Nate Silver of pro-wrestling" I might point them to this example.

Recently on Wrestlenomics Radio I've covered several subjects including:

• History of WWF Programming & WWF Financials 1983-2013
• What we learned (and didn't learn) in the WWE Q1 Financials 
• The Fallout from WWE's new TV Deal
• Vince's attitude as a CEO, the Best Wrestler Cameos on TV and talking MMA Draws with the guy who runs MMADraws.com

This weekend's show will hopefully be John Lister & I talking about the Wrestlenomics of ECW!

On the idea of looking at the "Top Drawing Feuds in WWE History"

There's always a gap between what you want to quantify and what you feel like we can actually quantify. A good example of this is looking at "top drawing feuds".

It's a valid exercise: Want to prove someone is a Hall of Famer? Want to show how evidence that a wrestler is capable of moving the needle and making a difference?

However, like many 'wrestlenomic' experiments, a lack of reliable sources that cover enormous swaths of time can be quite a hindrance. Additionally, there's something to be said when you're trying to compare events from different eras. And whenever you're trying to qualify something as top - that implies that you're also capable or establishing who was at the bottom and what's a valid baseline to use.  In short, it's difficult just to pick out the "best" unless you can also rank a lot of what is clearly "not the best".  And then there's the whole aspect of trying to determine who "drew" the crowd. (Was it the title match? Was it the match that went on last? Was it the match with the "biggest" star involved?)

When you look at all of this, it's a pretty daunting task.

Usually, I try to build things incrementally.  I tackle smaller time periods and attempt to expand the range larger and larger until I've covered a decent slice. Yet, I know that my methods are always going to be imperfect and the lens of history gets pretty foggy.

We can start with some internet resources.

Among the resources that I would look at:

• Wrestling Observer Awards (and runner-ups) 1980-2013
• WWF/WWE Feuds by Year (1980-2011)
• Matt Farmer's Research: Top Gates of the 1980s
• Matt Farmer's Research: Top Gates of the 1970s
• ProWrestling History's "Event Info" (PPV buys/buyrates, Large Attendance, Main Events)
• WWF 1980-1992 Draws by Tiers
• WWF/WWE Financials 1994-2013 (including number of events, attendance, PPV buys and revenue by segment)
• Estimates for WCW Buyrates 1987-2001
• Estimates for Domestic & International WWE PPV Buys 2006-2014
• Hulk Hogan's Drawing Power 1984-1990
• WWWF/WWF/WWE Draws 1963-2013
• JCP/WCW Draws 1986-2001
• My Thoughts on Professional Wrestling Analytics
• WCW & WWF House Show Attendance 1991-2001
• Steve Yohe's Project on "Greatest 100 Wrestling Stars"
• Wrestling Observer Issues (subscription required): 7/13/09 (Biggest Draws by Year), 8/5/09 (Greatest draws in Wrestling History), 11/22/10 (WWE Top 50 of all time), 2/27/12 (Biggest Drawing Cards in History), 1/14/13 (Reviews of several wrestling nostalgia/list books)

It's also important that we balance the drawing ability of wrestlers within their time period/territory.  For decades, WWWF was focused on the main event at Madison Square Garden.  For instance, in the 1980s, it's probably as important to weigh Network Broadcasts such as Saturday Night Main Events alongside PPV events. Also, don't be deceived that Hulk Hogan wasn't in the last match on SNME - he was purposefully placed in the middle of the card due to when the show aired.  The WWF was running hundreds and hundreds of wrestling shows (often several in a single night across many towns) in the late 1980s when things were really roaring.  There's going to be people on these cards (say a Barry O) who will be on some big drawing shows but it's hard to argue they were the "draw".  And there's going to be guys who were sent on the B-tours (and C-tours) that might have had hot feuds, but were being used to headline the smaller towns.  And there's going to be guys who were just the "monster of the week" brought in to fight the superstar such as Hogan's opponents like One Man Gang and Kamala.  In the 1990s, it's obviously more important to look at PPV events (which eventually move to a monthly format) and the number of house shows goes way down.  Instead, we see increasingly more and more content on television and a move away from syndicated programming. Television ratings start to play a substantial role. Merchandise, always a tricky topic to get solid numbers on, also continues to boom.  Moving into the modern era, WWE becomes more of a revenue machine that using many different streams to create a well-rounded balance between TV rights, live events, PPV, merchandise & licensing and a host of misc. streams (magazines, movies, digital rights, etc).

How do you qualify "top drawing"?  Is it the difference over a baseline? How do you create the baseline?  Wrestling has a natural cycle of interest - a steady build from January to Wrestlemania, a slight decrease in the Summertime, a serious dip when American Football comes back.  

There's the big feuds that we know were difference makers: The InVasion PPV pitting WCW vs WWFE. Bruno Sammartino - WWWF champion.  Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant.  Paul Orndorff vs Hulk Hogan.  Vince McMahon vs Steve Austin.  The Rock vs John Cena. But qualifying the next tier can be tough: Batista vs Triple H? The Undertaker's streak? Bret Hart vs Davey Boy Smith? 

If I were tackling this project, I'd probably start by looking at the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards for "Feud of the Year" and "Best Box Office Draw" results for the last 30 years. I'd need to weigh a lot of factors. I'd want to pull results from The History of WWE and CageMatch.net to look at attendance.  I'd probably need to develop some models so I create predictions of what I would "expect" a SummerSlam PPV to do at a certain price point, so I could compare and tell how much credit I should give to "Hulk Hogan vs Shawn Michaels" being high.

It's a worthy project, but also a very time-consuming one.

Key questions for WWE Monday Conference Call

On Thursday, WWE announced a “multi-year strategic partnership” with NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. While full of the requisite WWE flowery language (USA’s Monday Night Raw & SyFy’s Friday Night Smackdown are “ratings juggernauts” and “longest-running weekly episodic entertainment programs on cable TV”), the press release was noticeably light on deal specifics.

Shortly after the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) closed, the company also released a “Business Outlook” for 2014-2015. This document offered near-term financial projections including the first real insights about the size of the new domestic Television Deal. However, the information on the “key content agreements” wasn’t broken out into U.S. and international (UK/Thailand/India) TV Rights. Instead, everything was agglomerated into a curious chart promising that new “multi-year distribution agreements that became or will become effective in key countries in 2014 or early 2015” would be approximately $200M. Analysts and investors crunched the numbers, and arrived at an estimate that the new NBCU domestic television agreement (for Raw & Smackdown) was worth approximately $150M/year. That represented about a 50% increase. The Wall Street Journal succinctly summarized the situation: “generous but well short of what Wall Street had come to expect.”

The overnight market reaction was brutal. WWE stock plummeted in after-hours trading and opened Friday morning down at 45%. The stock dropped from nearly $20/share before the deal was announced on Thursday to $11/share when the NYSE opened on Friday morning. For an announcement that WWE had hyped up for months and with the specter of a huge “live sports” money contract, WWE failed to deliver on their implied promises they’d achieve “double or triple” their current domestic rights fees. Forbes, Fortune, WSJ, LA Times, MarketWatch, Sporting News, Reuters, Businessweek, Time – all wrote articles on WWE’s stock woes (often with the incorrigible wrestling puns – “Stock Slammed!”, “Smackdown!”, “Shares Get Body Slammed” and “WWE is Taking a Beating – And Not the Fake for TV Kind of Beating”). WWE needed damage control. Finally, on Friday afternoon, WWE announced that they would host a “Business Outlook Conference Call” on Monday, May 19 with CEO Vince McMahon and CFO George Barrios.

People have a lot of questions. Hopefully this call will shed some light on the murky financial guidance that has been shared thus far.

Here are the important questions that I hope the WWE will address:

1. Will WWE clearly enumerate the size and contract lengths for each of their respective TV rights deals (both domestically and internationally)? When will the India TV rights deal negotiations be completed? What is the status of rebroadcast rights?
2. Given the financial and business consequences of launching the WWE Network, will the company be providing more timely subscriber number updates than just once a quarter? Since they are obviously a key to WWE’s long-term financial health, why aren’t they reported as part of the monthly “Key Performance Indicators”?
3. Will WWE provide clear accounting for the cost structure of the WWE Network including start-up costs and marketing (including “free trial” and “refer-a-friend” enticement programs)? Will they provide additional details regarding revenue splits along including the relationship with MLBAM?
4. Is the Global launch of the WWE Network confirmed for all listed countries (United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Nordics) by “end of 2014” as implied in the latest Business Outlook press release?
5. Will WWE respond to allegations that their “WWE Fan Households” consumer research resulted in an absurd worldwide inflated estimate of “77 million homes” with “affinity for WWE content”? How do they reconcile their numbers with the much lower number of weekly television viewers or other independent estimates by ESPN or Scarborough Research?
6. What are the latest estimates for domestic Pay-Per-View retention based on the “Extreme Rules” event? How many traditional buys did the event receive? Does WWE have an estimate of how many DirecTV and Dish Network fans are “stranded” without the ability to purchase WWE PPVs but lacking broadband access to order the WWE Network? Can WWE provide specific PPV numbers for Wrestlemania beyond the general “nearly 400,000 US homes”? Does WWE have an estimate of the overlap between existing WWE Network subscribers and fans that still chose to purchase Wrestlemania via traditional means?
7. Will WWE respond to the demands by Lemelson Capital for “urgent executive management change” and accusations of “material misrepresentations” concerning the “performance and operating profit model” of the WWE Network? Or the allegations by Shareholders Foundation over “potential securities laws violations”? Or the investigation by Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC into “whether WWE and/or its officers and directors violated state or federal securities laws”?
8. In light of the recent NBCU deal, does WWE feel they received fair value for their retention of Chris Bevilacqua and the media advisory firm Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures? Will WWE elaborate on the number of domestic TV rights bidders and who was the highest losing bidder?
9. Can WWE elaborate on the thinking behind keeping Smackdown on SyFy on Friday nights? Wouldn’t the property attract higher viewers either as a live show on Tuesday Night or a taped show on Wednesday or Thursday?
10. Are there any executive management changes anticipated in light of the stock drop and the results of television negotiations? Will WWE comment on the turnover in the Media Division including the departure of Perkins Miller and Brian Maddox? Will WWE explain the termination of EVP of Programming Matthew Singerman? To replace WWE Network positions, will WWE be changing their focus from recruiting from Television Industry to recruiting from talent from over-the-top services (Amazon, Hulu, Netflix)?

The expectations for WWE’s television rights negotiations were exceptionally high. WWE played the key role in shaping those expectations. While a 50% improvement in domestic TV rights is significant, WWE overplayed their hand in the lead-up and wasn’t able to deliver the mammoth increase they implied was coming. It was dangerous wager and WWE is now in a predicament. It’ll be interesting to hear what they say on Monday to try and fix this messy situation.

Chris Harrington is a pro-wrestling analyst and writer. He publishes exclusive content at Whatculture.com and can be reached at chris.harrington@gmail.com for further discussion.

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WWE TV Deal Analysis

Yesterday, as expected, WWE announced a new, multi-year deal with NBC Universal.  NBCU will continue to air WWE programming on their networks: Raw (USA), Smackdown (SyFy) and also Total Divas (E!).  The exact terms (length, size of contract) were not revealed in at the NBC Universal Cable Upfronts presentation (where NBC Universal Chairman Bonnie Hammer and WWE Executive Vice President Paul “Triple H” Levesque took the stage and announced the deal).

After the NYSE stock market closed, WWE released a “Business Outlook”. The document offered guidance on WWE’s projected performance for 2014 and 2015. In this forecast, WWE offered some projections about several things: the size of their “Key Content Agreements”, the financial impact of WWE Network expansion, overall ranges for profitability.

Investors were not (to put it mildly) impressed.  WWE stock had closed the Thursday night at $19.93/share.  Overnight, the stock lost almost half of it’s value.  It opened at $11/share.

That’s certainly not the response that WWE wanted.  For months, they sounded the steady drumbeat that they were going to get a monumental television deal. This was their opportunity to grab some of that “live sports” money and lock down a long-term, big money contract.  WWE pointed to their high ratings.  WWE pointed to their DVR-proof programming (with 90%+ watching Raw live each week).  WWE timed their deals to be coterminous (ending at the same time).  WWE hinted at multiple bidders.  WWE signed big international television deals (UK, Thailand) that were represented several-fold increases. The company believed they had things right where they wanted them for a nice, juicy domestic TV contract.

In the middle of this, WWE decided to launch the WWE Network.  Launching the Network in February was a double-edged sword. On the plus side, it painted the WWE as an innovative and leading company that was embraced the future of digital media.  They were rolling-out a state-of-the-art over-the-top subscription service for their fans! WWE received loads of publicity, and on opening day demonstrated an the onslaught of hungry fans (who promptly crashed the servers).  On the negative side, WWE Network continues to be an expensive project with ambitious break-even points. As a result of launching, WWE’s relationship with multi-channel video programming distributors suffered and some PPV providers (notable DirecTV and Dish Network) dropped carrying WWE pay-per-views.

But, all in all, the WWE Network made WWE seem like a really big deal. Imaginations started running wild and the stock price soared (reaching $31 by mid-March). The first major hurdle was Wrestlemania 30 and proving the Network handle the demand.  Analysts were pleased to see that technology worked and the WWE Network withstood the test. Things looked rosey.

Then WWE announced the post-Wrestlemania WWE Network subscriber number.  it was 667,287 subscribers.  While some media reports proudly championed this as “well on the way to a million”, the reality stung. WWE had thought they could do better. Many Wall Street Analysts believed WWE was going to announce more than a million subscriptions.  Instead, after the biggest event of the year, WWE still had a significant way to go (300,000+).  And that was just to hit their own “break-even” point. The stock began to tumble.  Even the following week’s surprise good news – “Almost 400,000 US Households order WM30 via traditional, full-price PPV!” – did not trigger a massive stock rebound.

Things were amiss.  However, despite these hiccups, investor optimism remained.  For they were looking at the true prize which lay ahead: the new domestic TV rights deal.  While the WWE Network was a neat adventure (a noted departure from relying on selling expensive three-hour PPVs via cable and satellite systems), the real money rested in WWE’s weekly television deals.  Worldwide Pay-per-view revenue had been eclipsed by worldwide television rights fees back in 2008.  (If you include advertising alongside TV rights, they actually started beating PPV back in FY2002.)  While WWE makes a lot of money off live events ($112M), PPV ($83M) and Licensing ($46M), their largest revenue source remains their television contracts ($161M).  WWE may be a  “integrated media organization and recognized leader in global entertainment” but moreover they’re a television company. They need the weekly outlet to stay connected to their global fanbase, and without television, the company would be an exceptionally bad place.  The lessons from the collapse of their chief rival (World Championship Wrestling) are not lost on WWE: Without a television contract, a professional wrestling company is completely crippled.

Many pointed to the fact that Monday Night Raw is often the top rated show on Monday Night cable.  It regularly deliverers four million viewers (three million households) and WWE produces original content all year long.  Those are important facts, but that overlooks another stunning fact – wrestling gets lousy advertising revenue.  Despite all of those dedicated fans, advertising rates for professional wrestling remains exceptionally low.  According to Scarborough’s research, slightly more than a quarter (28%) of WWE avid fans earn more than $50,000 annually – that compares to 51% for the U.S. adult population. Compare as one might to NASCAR, you don’t see Car commercials and Beer ads during wrestling broadcasts.

Several months ago, an analyst told me that based on the advertising rates they estimated for WWE, they couldn’t fathom why a network would pay more than $160 to $180 million annually for the WWE contract.  After all, WWE viewers can’t be counted on to stick around. Or in television lingo: “WWE doesn’t provide much of a halo effect to other network programming” (with the notable exception of MMA reality shows).  Yet, without addressing this fundamental paradox, WWE continued to promise potential investors (and potential bidders) that since live sports were hot and signing huge contracts, so they expected to sign a huge contract too.

How confident was the WWE?  At the Q2 Conference Call last year (August 2013) Vince McMahon promised (with trademark gusto) that if they did not double their rights fees, the analyst could put him in a hammerlock.

Over the past 15 years, WWE has done a decent job of diversifying their revenue streams.  This gives them some flexibility so they don’t have to rely on a single area of business (digital media, live events, licensing, magazine, television contracts, movie studio, PPV money, merchandising, etc.) to be the sole engine of growth.  However, it’s been clear for some time that bundling all of the domestic television deals together to sell them in one swoop was supposed to be prop up the company in the near-term while the WWE Network picked up steam. The guidance they realized suggests they’re expecting to lose money in 2014 (even at a million Network subscribers, they’re projecting -$20M for annual net income).  Since they keep promising future years are going to be big – built mostly on the back of WWE Network growth and WWE TV Contracts, how did they make out?

Now, there’s something to be said for WWE’s chart: it’s confusing.  They “Key Content Agreements” represent “television distribution agreements in the U.K. and Thailand, an agreement in principle in the U.S., and an estimate for India.” The “Prior” Deals refrences 2009 to 2010, the “Current” Deals references 2013 to 2014 and the “New” Deals references 2014 to 14.  However, it appears they’re only looking at Domestic Television revenue for the “Prior” and “Current” deals.  We know that WWE grossed $73M-$83M (domestic) plus $39M-$45M (international) in TV rights in 2009-2010 alone.  Yet, they’re only showing $76M on this chart.  Baffling. Are they leaving out cancelled shows (Saturday Morning Slam, WWE Superstars, Main Event, NXT, ECW on SyFy)?  Are they leaving out non-UK International revenue (and if so, why)?  It’s a curious bit of financial “storytelling” on WWE’s part.  However you decide to slice it, it seems to imply that WWE only walked away with about $92M more in new TV deals, and some portion (we estimate a third) is from international contracts.

The current domestic WWE television contract has three pieces: Monday Night Raw, Friday Night Smackdown and Total Divas.  Combined, their 2013 value (on North American television) was worth a little under $100M.  Additionally, back in January 2014, WWE announced they’d extended their BSkyB deal in the UK (5-years).  It’s been estimated that the new agreement was worth triple the old deal, a number that some analysts have put at $30M.  Additionally, WWE negotiated a new Thailand TV deal (approximated at $3.5M, up from $500k) and is currently working on their new India TV deal (which is currently estimated at $12M; let’s assume they double it).  So, international new deals would represent about $35M in annual incremental revenue.  If WWE guidance is that new “key content agreements” are worth an increase of $92M overall, that would only leave about $57M for the domestic TV rights.  That implies domestic television rights received a little more than a 50% increase which is a far cry from “doubling the TV rights”.

It should be noted that not everyone thought the contract was going to double.  While WWE wanted a number closed to $280M and Investors salivated at the notion that the annual domestic WWE TV contract could be worth $400M, others had set more realistic estimates.  (I had suggested it would probably start in 2015 around $160M/yr – pretty close to the $150M it appears to be.)  We still don’t have guidance on the full details of the contract – how many years (typically it’s been five-years), what are the rebroadcast rights (WWE wants to get a deal at least as good as Hulu for the WWE Network to show Raw/Smackdown), will it include new WWE programming (Tough Enough was mentioned in the last conference call, but as a new show on the WWE Network), will any programming change nights (Live Smackdown on Tuesday Nights on SyFy has been rumored, but WWE wanted a large contract to offset the added cost).

It’s important to emphasize that that the sky isn’t falling.  The company is set to make a lot more money in the beginning of 2015 for producing the same amount of television content they produced in the middle of 2014.  Being cancelled by a major network would be devastating news for WWE.  That didn’t happen.  Only receiving at 50% price boost isn’t a disaster – just a failure of WWE to live up to the hype and promises they’ve been issuing. But however WWE wants to spin it, this week’s events have been a blow to WWE’s credibility. If WWE wants investors to believe their “sky’s the limit” promises about WWE Network growth (and the corresponding hundreds of millions of dollars of profit), the company needs to account for what happened so they can start rebuilding that trust.

Read more at http://whatculture.com/wwe/wwes-new-tv-deal-know.php#Fhp6tdKHOWSVagJV.99

Raw & Nitro Quarter Hours 1999

RAW & NITRO QUARTER HOURS - 1999
source: PWI Almanac published in 2000

SHOW	WEEK	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9	Q10	Q11	Q12	OR	Total	Head to Head
RAW	1/4/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.9	5.6	6.0	5.2	5.7	5.7	6.2	5.9	5.1	5.8	5.8
NITRO	1/4/99	4.9	5.6	5.9	5.8	4.4	4.4	4.5	5.1	5.1	4.7	4.1	4.6	6.5	5.0	4.7
RAW	1/11/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.4	5.8	5.7	5.0	5.9	5.1	5.8	5.1	6.1	5.5	5.5
NITRO	1/11/99	5.0	5.7	6.4	6.3	5.0	4.7	4.4	5.5	4.2	4.4	3.8	4.5	4.7	5.0	4.6
RAW	1/18/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.1	5.5	5.5	5.2	5.7	6.1	5.3	6.1	6.0	5.5	5.5
NITRO	1/18/99	4.9	5.6	6.1	6.5	4.9	4.3	4.4	4.4	4.8	3.9	4.3	4.2	5.3	4.9	4.4
RAW	1/25/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.8	5.5	6.4	5.1	5.9	4.9	5.2	4.8	5.5	5.5	5.5
NITRO	1/25/99	4.4	5.1	5.7	5.9	4.6	4.6	4.1	5.1	4.8	5.5	4.8	5.1	5.3	5.0	4.8
RAW	2/1/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.3	5.9	5.7	5.4	6.0	6.0	5.7	5.7	6.0	5.9	5.9
NITRO	2/1/99	4.6	5.6	6.0	5.9	4.3	3.7	4.3	4.8	4.4	4.3	4.2	4.0	3.9	4.7	4.3
RAW-SAT	2/13/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	3.8				4.8				N/A	4.3	N/A
NITRO	2/8/99	4.8	5.3	5.4	5.4	6.2	5.7	6.1	5.9		6.0	6.0	5.7	5.6	6.4	5.7
RAW	2/15/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.9	6.4	6.0	6.1	5.1	6.1	5.8	5.9	6.8	5.9	5.9
NITRO	2/15/99	4.2	4.6	5.0	5.0	3.9	3.1	3.0	3.4	5.0	5.8	3.3	3.0	4.5	3.9	3.6
RAW	2/22/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.4	5.3	6.1	5.6	5.6	5.5	5.5	6.5	5.5	5.5	5.5
NITRO	2/22/99	4.7	4.0	5.3	5.4	4.3	4.4	4.3	4.6	4.9	4.8	4.9	4.5	3.8	4.7	4.6
RAW	3/1/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.4	6.1	6.4	6.6	6.2	5.7	6.4	6.4	7.6	6.4	6.4
NITRO	3/1/99	4.7	5.2	5.1	5.6	3.8	3.8	3.7	3.7	4.1	4.3	3.8	3.8	3.9	4.3	3.9
RAW	3/8/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.4	6.2	7.0	6.3	6.7	6.2	7.0	6.0	6.1	6.4	6.4
NITRO	3/8/99	4.7	5.0	5.1	5.0	3.9	4.5	3.6	4.4	3.7	4.2	3.5	4.6	5.7	4.4	4.1
RAW	3/15/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.2	6.3	5.9	5.7	6.3	6.3	5.5	5.4	5.2	5.8	5.8
NITRO	3/15/99	4.4	4.7	5.0	5.0	5.0	3.7	4.0	4.4	4.0	3.4	3.4	4.1	5.4	4.3	4.1
RAW	3/22/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.4	6.9	6.2	6.3	6.4	6.1	5.7	7.1	7.7	6.4	6.4
NITRO	3/22/99	4.2	4.8	5.2	4.9	3.6	3.0	3.7	4.1	3.6	3.4	4.1	2.9	3.5	4.0	3.6
RAW	3/29/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.7	6.6	7.0	6.1	6.2	6.2	6.4	6.5	6.8	6.5	6.5
NITRO	3/29/99	3.8	4.2	4.6	4.4	3.6	2.7	2.8	3.4	3.8	3.8	3.0	2.8	3.1	3.5	3.2
RAW	4/5/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.1	5.6	6.0	5.2	6.0	5.9	6.7	5.6	7.2	5.8	5.8
NITRO	4/5/99	3.5	4.2	4.9	4.8	4.3	4.0	4.0	3.9	4.4	3.9	5.4	4.5	5.4	4.4	4.4
RAW	4/12/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.8	6.4	6.5	6.4	6.3	6.8	5.6	6.3	6.0	6.3	6.3
NITRO	4/12/99	3.5	4.2	4.9	4.8	4.3	4.0	4.0	3.9	4.4	3.9	5.4	4.5	5.4	4.4	4.4
RAW	4/19/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.0	6.1	5.8	6.1	6.4	6.6	5.7	6.8	7.1	6.1	6.1
NITRO	4/19/99	3.7	3.9	4.3	4.9	4.1	3.6	4.1	4.1	3.9	3.8	5.0	3.4	4.4	4.1	4.1
RAW	4/26/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.3	5.6	6.3	6.0	6.3	6.0	5.6	6.3	6.8	6.0	6.0
NITRO	4/26/99	3.7	4.2	4.4	5.1	4.9	3.8	3.3	3.5	3.4	3.4	3.6	3.3	3.6	3.9	3.7
RAW	5/3/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.4	5.4	6.7	6.1	6.6	6.7	7.3	6.7	7.4	6.5	6.5
NITRO	5/3/99	3.2	3.8	4.5	4.4	3.7	3.5	3.0	3.6	2.9	2.9	2.4	2.9	3.0	3.4	3.1
RAW	5/10/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.7	7.8	8.2	8.4	8.3	8.6	8.4	8.3	9.2	8.1	N/A
NITRO	5/10/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
RAW	5/17/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.0	5.1	6.1	6.2	7.3	7.1	6.5	7.1	7.8	6.4	6.4
NITRO	5/17/99	3.4	3.8	4.3	4.3	4.3	3.8	2.9	3.2	2.6	2.5	2.8	2.6	2.4	3.3	3.1
RAW	5/24/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	7.3	7.0	7.2	7.2	7.2	7.4	6.8	7.0	7.3	7.1	7.1
NITRO	5/24/99	3.9	4.3	4.4	5.1	3.5	3.9	3.4	3.3	3.5	3.1	3.7	3.3	3.3	3.8	3.5
RAW	5/31/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4.9	5.9	5.7	6.5	6.6	6.4	6.6	6.8	7.3	6.2	6.2
NITRO	5/31/99	3.8	3.6	3.7	3.7	3.7	3.0	3.3	2.4	3.2	2.8	2.9	2.9	3.2	3.3	3.0
RAW	6/7/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.0	7.0	6.8	6.8	6.8	7.1	6.8	6.9	7.3	6.7	6.7
NITRO	6/7/99	3.3	3.7	4.1	4.5	3.7	2.5	2.7	2.8	2.7	2.5	2.9	2.5	3.5	3.5	3.2
RAW	6/14/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.1	6.4	6.6	7.0	7.1	6.6	6.7	6.8	6.8	6.7	6.7
NITRO	6/14/99	3.4	3.8	3.9	3.8	3.0	2.7	2.7	3.0	3.1	3.0	3.4	3.2	3.8	3.3	3.0
RAW	6/21/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.6	6.1	6.1	5.8	6.2	6.0	6.1	5.7	7.4	6.0	6.0
NITRO	6/21/99	3.0	3.3	4.0	4.0	2.4	2.4	2.4	2.9	3.2	2.7	3.1	3.6	N/A	3.1	2.7
RAW	6/28/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.3	6.0	6.6	6.7	6.9	6.7	7.3	7.1	7.1	9.5	6.8
NITRO	6/28/99	3.2	3.7	4.6	4.2	2.8	3.3	3.4	3.3	3.5	3.5	3.3	4.4	N/A	3.9	3.6
RAW	7/5/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.3	5.8	5.9	5.7	6.1	5.7	6.2	6.6	6.6	6.0	6.0
NITRO	7/5/99	3.3	3.7	4.1	4.2	3.6	3.0	3.2	3.4	2.9	3.0	2.5	2.1	3.8	3.3	3.1
RAW	7/12/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4.7	5.5	5.8	5.7	6.7	6.4	6.4	6.3	7.2	6.0	6.0
NITRO	7/12/99	3.5	3.4	3.6	3.6	3.5	2.7	3.1	3.2	3.0	3.3	3.7	4.7	4.5	3.5	3.4
RAW	7/19/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.3	6.1	6.2	6.3	6.2	6.0	6.4	7.0	7.4	6.2	6.2
NITRO	7/19/99	3.2	3.4	3.6	4.1	3.3	2.7	3.0	3.3	3.7	3.2	3.3	2.9	3.5	3.3	3.2
RAW	7/26/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.2	6.7	7.8	7.0	7.8	7.4	7.3	6.6	7.5	7.1	7.1
NITRO	7/26/99	3.3	3.8	4.4	4.5	2.9	2.6	2.7	3.5	3.0	2.7	3.5	4.1	4.3	3.4	3.2
RAW	8/2/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4.9	5.7	6.4	6.3	6.7	5.6	5.3	6.0	6.2	5.9	5.9
NITRO	8/2/99	3.3	3.5	3.5	4.1	2.6	2.1	2.2	2.6	2.6	3.4	3.4	2.9	4.0	3.1	2.8
RAW	8/9/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.2	6.2	6.9	6.6	6.3	6.8	6.5	6.1	6.9	6.4	6.4
NITRO	8/9/99	3.1	3.3	3.7	4.5	3.5	2.8	2.3	2.6	2.9	2.4	2.6	3.1	4.4	3.1	2.8
RAW	8/16/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.9	5.7	8.3	6.6	6.9	7.2	6.9	6.2	7.1	6.6	6.6
NITRO	8/16/99	3.5	3.5	4.0	4.2	2.8	3.3	2.5	3.0	2.9	2.8	2.9	3.7	4.3	3.3	3.0
RAW	8/23/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.4	5.7	5.6	5.9	6.0	6.4	5.5	5.2	6.4	5.7	5.7
NITRO	8/23/99	2.9	3.5	3.3	3.5	2.7	2.5	2.9	2.7	2.6	2.5	2.8	3.4	2.3	2.9	2.8
RAW 11 PM	8/30/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	3.8	4.5	4.4	4.2	4.5	4.2	4.0	3.7	4.2	4.2	N/A
NITRO	8/30/99	2.7	3.4	3.4	3.6	3.9	4.2	4.5	4.2	4.4	4.3	4.3	4.8	4.4	4.0	N/A
RAW 11 PM	9/6/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4.3	4.6	4.7	4.9	4.3	4.0	4.2	4.2	4.0	4.4	N/A
NITRO	9/6/99	3.5	3.7	3.7	4.2	4.5	3.9	4.2	4.2	4.3	4.5	4.5	4.4	4.4	4.1	N/A
RAW	9/13/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.2	5.9	5.9	5.9	6.4	6.2	6.0	5.8	7.0	6.0	6.0
NITRO	9/13/99	3.3	4.1	4.6	4.4	2.9	2.7	3.1	2.7	2.9	2.6	2.6	3.4	3.0	3.3	2.9
RAW	9/20/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.4	6.1	6.0	6.0	6.7	5.8	5.7	6.2	7.1	6.1	6.1
NITRO	9/20/99	3.5	4.0	4.6	4.3	3.6	2.5	2.7	2.4	2.2	2.5	2.5	2.0	1.7	3.1	2.6
RAW	9/27/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.0	6.7	6.6	6.9	8.3	6.8	6.6	6.1	7.0	6.8	6.8
NITRO	9/27/99	3.6	4.0	4.2	4.7	2.9	2.2	2.2	2.4	1.6	2.4	2.7	3.0	3.8	3.0	2.5
RAW	10/4/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.2	5.6	6.1	6.7	5.9	6.1	5.8	5.7	6.5	5.9	5.9
NITRO	10/4/99	3.0	3.6	3.6	4.3	2.9	2.4	2.2	2.2	2.5	2.8	2.6	2.6	2.8	2.9	2.5
RAW	10/11/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.3	5.9	5.9	6.2	5.9	6.1	6.7	6.1	6.1	6.1	6.1
NITRO	10/11/99	3.1	3.5	3.8	4.2	2.1	2.4	2.1	2.1	2.4	2.1	2.0	1.9	1.8	2.6	2.1
RAW	10/18/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.4	5.8	5.1	5.9	5.1	5.1	5.3	5.5	5.6	5.4	5.4
NITRO	10/18/99	3.4	3.7	4.1	3.9	3.1	2.7	3.4	3.3	3.5	3.0	2.8	2.7	3.2	3.3	3.1
RAW	10/25/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.2	5.2	5.4	6.3	6.0	5.6	5.1	5.8	5.6	5.6	5.6
NITRO	10/25/99	3.5	4.0	4.1	4.4	3.5	3.6	3.5	2.7	3.0	2.5	3.5	3.7	3.7	3.5	3.2
RAW	11/1/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.6	6.1	6.2	5.6	6.0	5.9	5.5	5.8	6.5	5.9	5.9
NITRO	11/1/99	3.8	3.9	4.0	4.0	3.2	2.9	2.9	3.1	3.0	2.5	2.7	2.7	2.5	3.2	2.9
RAW	11/8/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.4	5.3	4.9	5.0	6.1	5.2	5.7	5.0	6.7	5.4	5.4
NITRO	11/8/99	3.5	3.9	4.5	4.1	3.2	2.9	3.2	3.0	2.4	3.0	2.6	3.3	N/A	3.3	3.0
RAW	11/15/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.9	6.3	6.7	6.1	6.4	6.1	6.1	6.0	6.4	6.2	6.2
NITRO	11/15/99	2.8	3.3	3.7	3.8	3.3	2.8	2.8	3.2	2.8	2.8	2.7	3.0	2.8	3.1	2.9
RAW	11/22/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4.8	5.9	5.4	5.9	5.6	5.9	5.7	5.2	4.7	5.5	5.5
NITRO	11/22/99	3.3	3.6	4.0	3.9	3.5	2.7	3.3	3.3	3.3	3.1	3.0	3.4	4.0	3.4	3.3
RAW	11/29/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	6.2	6.5	6.3	6.3	6.9	6.5	6.8	6.3	7.3	6.5	6.5
NITRO	11/29/99	3.4	3.7	4.0	4.1	2.7	2.5	3.0	2.8	2.8	2.8	2.6	3.0	2.7	3.1	2.8
RAW	12/6/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.3	5.7	5.4	5.9	7.2	6.6	6.0	5.8	5.7	6.0	6.0
NITRO	12/6/99	3.1	3.8	4.1	4.1	2.9	2.8	3.0	2.6	2.0	2.2	2.6	3.0	3.7	3.0	2.7
RAW	12/13/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.6	5.8	6.5	6.6	6.4	6.0	5.9	6.0	5.8	6.1	6.1
NITRO	12/13/99	2.9	3.4	3.9	4.0	2.6	2.4	2.2	2.2	2.7	2.4	2.4	2.7	3.3	2.8	2.5
RAW	12/20/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4.7	5.7	6.4	5.5	6.1	6.4	6.2	5.6	6.1	5.8	5.8
NITRO	12/20/99	3.7	4.0	3.9	4.1	3.5	2.6	2.4	3.0	2.8	2.6	2.7	3.0	3.6	3.2	2.9
RAW	12/27/99	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5.7	5.5	5.4	5.6	6.5	6.1	5.7	6.0	6.6	5.8	5.8
NITRO	12/27/99	3.0	3.6	3.8	4.3	2.6	2.5	2.5	2.2	2.4	2.7	2.0	3.0	N/A	2.9	2.5

RAW	Q5	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9	Q10	Q11	Q12	OR	Total
AVG	5.6	6.0	6.2	6.1	6.4	6.2	6.2	6.2	6.6	6.2
Q1	5.8	6.0	6.2	5.7	6.0	5.8	5.9	6.0	6.2	5.9
Q2	5.7	6.2	6.5	6.5	6.8	6.8	6.6	6.7	7.3	6.7
Q3	5.4	6.0	6.5	6.3	6.7	6.4	6.3	6.2	6.9	6.3
Q4	5.5	5.8	5.8	6.0	6.2	6.0	5.9	5.8	6.1	5.9

INDEX	Q5	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9	Q10	Q11	Q12	OR	Total
AVG	90	97	101	99	103	101	99	99	107	100
Q1	98	101	104	96	101	98	99	100	105	100
Q2	84	92	97	97	101	101	99	100	108	100
Q3	86	96	104	100	108	102	100	99	111	100
Q4	94	99	99	102	105	102	100	98	104	100