SLAM! Wrestling Editorial: Biting the hand that feeds you
By NICK TYLWALK -- For SLAM! Wrestling
You know the type. They appear to be normal people when you meet them,
nice folks and good neighbours. Everyone seems to like
them, and when they come into a little money, you
don't mind. It couldn't have happened to nicer
people, you think.
At least you think that until they don't have time for
you any more. Success has gone to their heads,
leaving you wondering if they have forgotten the
people who supported them on their way to the top.
If you are a wrestling fan and don't know what I'm
talking about, maybe this quote will help.
"In actual fact, it will prove to be a good thing we
don't have WWF programming. [The shows] produced a
ratings spike of not very attractive young males who
came and left."
That gem from just last summer came courtesy of Barry
Diller, Chairman and CEO of USA Networks Inc., and was
just one of many statements he made downplaying the
departure of WWF programming to TNN. Mr. Diller would
have had you believe that the USA Network made
wrestling, not the other way around, and that Raw Is
War (often the highest rated show on cable in a given
week) could be replaced by movies more palatable to
USA's "core audience."
It must be just coincidence that USA has dropped from
first to fifth among cable networks after losing the
WWF shows; just good luck that has TNN is in the top spot
most weeks. And Diller and company aren't the only
ones to subscribe to this brand of thinking, as
evidenced by the recent decision by AOL Time Warner to
drop WCW programming from the Turner networks,
effective March 26.
Check out these comments by Turner spokesman Jim Weiss
and tell me you don't find them eerily reminiscent of
some made just a few months back.
"Professional wrestling, in its current form and its
current style, is not consistent with the higher-end,
upscale brands we've created at TNT and TBS," Weiss
told a wire service this past Monday. "These are huge,
big-time networks."
Guess nearly three decades of helping to build the
"brands" counts for nothing once you hit the big time.
The success of the Turner networks must not owe
anything to professional wrestling, and we can't
expect TNT and TBS to be seen with their undesirable
young male audience now. What would their new
"upscale" friends think?
Granted, Nitro and Thunder don't combine to pull in
the number of viewers that Raw does by itself, so it's
not unreasonable for AOL programming honcho Jamie
Kellner to think that their replacements (you guessed
it: movies) can fill the ratings void. But the timing
of Turner's announcement at least contributed to the
demise of Fusient Media Ventures' bid to purchase WCW,
if not destroyed it. That shows what the brass at AOL
Time Warner really think of wrestling, not to mention
the wrestling fan.
Perhaps another fledgling cable channel (FX comes to
mind) will take a chance on WCW -- if it survives.
Here's hoping that if that new tenant on the sports
entertainment block rises to prominence on the wave of
wrestling's next surge of popularity, it shows a
little more class than USA and TNT and doesn't
badmouth all of its old neighbours on the way out.
Because once you burn down all the bridges in your old
neighbourhood, you can't go back again.
