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NewsStephanie McMahon Confirms ESPN Will Be At WrestleMania 33, Says WWE Listens...

Stephanie McMahon Confirms ESPN Will Be At WrestleMania 33, Says WWE Listens To Their Audience

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Credit: PWInsider

Stephanie McMahon spoke today at Brand Building Through Live Video at SXSW 2017. She said they have over 7000 hours on WWE Network currently, but they have over 100,000 hours that they are strategically working on placing.

She also mentioned the value of Video On Demand. If a show is live, people tune in live. If a show is taped, their data shows that people tend to watch it at their leisure, even if it’s a first airing of that pre-taped content.

Based on those live stats they engage with other types of live content that isn’t just on TV – Snapchat, Instagram Stories, Facebook Live, YouTube Live, etc. Live original content for 5-inch devices is a big deal, in addition to 50-inch devices.

When they took Smackdown and made it live on Tuesdays, they saw their Facebook engagement increase 367% to related live content.

Before each PPV they have a live kickoff show on the network, YouTube, Facebook, twitter.

For royal rumble they had 3.5 million live views prior to the start of the event across those platforms – using live video across multiple social platforms is a great strategy for getting as much attention as possible leading into a big event.

It’s not about television rating anymore, it’s about hours. Yes, subscribers are also important, but they track usage and getting people to consume content. On average a WWE Network subscriber watches an average of 4 hours of content per week. The goal is to increase the hours watched because that keeps people hooked.

WWE has a 3 tiered content strategy. Traditional linear programming, licensed to 180 countries and primary money maker. Then there’s the live and VOD social content where the biggest money generator is YouTube. Then there’s the WWE Network their own service.

We believe in really listening to our audience, and they wanted a WWE Network – they wanted a way to watch the content all in one place wherever they want. Their consumer base is 5x more likely to consume online video than the average American.

A lesson learned was when they launched they didn’t have a 30 day trial and required a 6 month signup. That was a mistake on both fronts. Now the 30-day trial and the monthly model has led to huge success since that change was implemented.

That should say, “We believe in listening to our audience” in quotes – I laughed out loud when she said that!

For people to want to watch your live content, it has to be both fun and engaging. People don’t want to waste time on their devices in the age of the short attention span watching things that don’t satisfy them with comedy or like they are gonna miss something if they aren’t watching or just something that’s a relatable great story.

The most successful live video for WWE was the stuff around WrestleMania. 250,000 video streams outside of the WWE Network.

Most embarrassing on live video for her was on Twitter – she was saying she was honored to be “dominated” by the Cajones Awards when she meant to say “nominated.”

The talent gets trained in social media and best usage. There’s a dedicated social media team of 100 people, as well as social media producers – they even have a presence at every non-televised live event.

ESPN’s SportsCenter will be at WrestleMania this year.

Paul Jordan sent this. … Stephanie McMahon streamed today’s SXSW panel on online video through her Facebook page.

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