Is Online gaming hurting WWE ratings?

AudioSavior

From CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Is there a prime time for video game players?

Sony Corp., maker of the PlayStation 2 video game console, said a study of the online gaming habits showed that peak usage was between 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., a span that encompasses television's prime time.

The study, which Sony conducted in February and released March 4, comes amid a potentially costly debate for the networks about whether fewer younger men have been watching broadcast television.

February is one of the television industry's "sweeps" periods, when ratings are used to set local TV advertising rates, and Sony said that 65 percent of its online gaming audience during TV's prime time -- 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. week nights -- were men aged 18 to 34.

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I heard this 3 times today and it got me thinking. This is exactly the time and target audience the WWE wants and is having trouble getting. Could this be one of the reason the rates are so low even with the product improving weekly? With WWE Raw doing 3.8 cable rating on Monday and Smackdown! doing a 3.1 broadcast rating the week before the biggest WM ever, what other reason could there be?

Is there a way to get these fans to start turning in to the WWE? Maybe if they made their game online and started targeting the online game users the ratings would improve. Hard to say really but it is one reason or possibility for the ratings of late.

What you do think?

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

It woudl be a great idea to make a wrestling game that is available through online play. You could create your own guy and then have ranking etc etc.

I would friggin love that.

I used to be one of those guys that would have all my friends over for wrestling back in like 97-2000. We would sometimes play video games instead of watching wrestling and then it began happening more and more.

So I would say yes, it does have an impact on the WWE target audience.