Guest Blogger - The Channel Is The Thing

It came up on an episode of #LoWdown... (Every Tuesday...check it out!)Booking a RAW card...and I had put forth that the way to do it would be to have the Low Card in the first hour; Mid Card in the second hour and Main Event in the last hour. It was debated that it could not be done that way because of viewers and ratings.It was only today that I realized my hubris... In Canada WWE RAW (and SmackDown) airs on Rogers' SportsNet 360, which is a sports channel. That is all they show...Sports. Where as in America, RAW is on the USA Network and SmackDown is on SyFy, which are cable network channels, and the American audience, not the Canadian viewers (or international viewers), measures the ratings.   I am no different then any other fans; I find myself frequently thinking that I could book a better show then the creative team at WWE. I even went so far as to look at WWE's Corporate site to see what the job description is; (and it is pretty detailed) to see if I could qualify for a job in the creative section...and after reading the description I can honestly say...No Chance...at least not yet. The creative team has a hard job, they not only have to appeal to us diehard fans; but they also need to hook the casual fan in for 3 hours; that is longer than most Hollywood Blockbusters (except for Peter Jackson Trilogies...which I love by the way). While my original thought of having the show progress from low card through mid card and up to main event holds some merit, it does not hold water. For WWE to sustain 3 hours of RAW (and 2 hours of SmackDown) there does need to be ebb and flow. Yet as of late, the ebb is not flowing so well. The RAW after Wrestlemania was amazing; but it is steadily sliding downwards despite the occasional blip of wrestling goodness. It gives the impression that creative - whom get their marching orders from the authorities - are running willy-nilly. As we know the powers that be *cough* Vince *cough* like to make those seriously annoying last minute changes like I change my socks; this would test the mettle of anyone. We do not normally hear from the majority of the creative souls that work for WWE, but I suspect that they too are at times frustrated with the normal run of things. One could speculate that there is a power struggle behind the scenes where the left hand is battling the right hand for supremacy; with the talent (including creative) and the fans caught in the maelstrom. However, regardless of what is going down behind the scenes; the cable networks care little for that, what they look at is ratings, to sell advertising, which is what keeps the networks and programs on the air, advertisers. So while creative writes for the fans of the product; they also need to write with the networks in mind as well. Cheers,Krysta