Marc,
I noticed refenced to the following on the Yahoo Board. He's right, this will be BIG news if it happens. With this sort of deal in the making, wrestling is not about to die anytime soon!!
Brian
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Rivals go to the mat for
wrestling rights
CBS, Fox grappling for WWF
By CHRIS PURSELL, JOHN DEMPSEY, February 2,
2000
Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch are
grappling to dislodge the TV and cable rights to
the World Wrestling Federation from the iron
grip of Barry Diller.
Sources say Redstone's Viacom/CBS was
convinced it had locked up a deal with the WWF
as late as a week ago. The proposed contract,
which has gone back to the drawing boards,
would keep the popular “WWF Smackdown” on
UPN and shift the five weekly cablecasts on
Diller's USA Network — including the
Monday-night hours “WWF Raw” and “WWF
War Zone,” the two highest-rated regular series
on cable TV — to the CBS-owned TNN: The
Nashville Network when USA's contract
expires.
The Viacom/CBS offer includes an undisclosed
cash payment for an equity stake in the WWF,
according to the source. The WWF is all ears,
because Viacom/CBS is promising to engineer
an unprecedented multiyear marketing campaign
that would promote the wrestling matches on
MTV (which Viacom owns); on 170 CBS radio
stations, many of which appeal to the 12- to
24-year olds who make up the biggest proportion
of the wrestling audience; and across all the
Web sites controlled by Viacom and CBS.
Contract in force
The WWF's contract with USA still has a year
and a half to run, although the federation's
prospectus says that one of the parties can
terminate the contract earlier if circumstances so
dictate. Vince McMahon, chairman and CEO of
the WWF, may be holding off as he entertains
an offer from Murdoch's Fox Corp., which,
sources say, is also prepared to put up cash for
an equity stake in the federation as well as shift
WWF programming to Fox and cabler FX.
Both suitors may also dangle the producer carrot
in front of the WWF as well, providing an outlet
for other programming produced by the WWF,
such as gameshows or comedies.
But McMahon's staff sells the advertising time
on the TV and cable shows of the WWF, and
advertising revenues would fall dramatically if
the four shows on USA (which gets in to 77.2
million households) gravitated to Murdoch's FX
cable network (which reaches only 45.1 million
households).
Some of that revenue gap could be made up if
“Smackdown” shifted from UPN, which clears
an average of only 84% of the U.S., to the Fox
Network, which hits 99%.
Ratings stranglehold
The main reason Viacom/CBS and Fox are
inundating McMahon with candy and flowers is
that WWF ratings are nothing short of
spectacular. UPN has delivered an average
rating of 4.6 for the first 19 telecasts season to
date — 171% higher than the movies the
network was running in the time period in
1998-99.
For the USA Network, the two-hour
Monday-night event averaged a smashing 6.3
rating in cable homes for January, a 17% gain
over the wrestling bouts in January 1999.
So Diller is not going to let the WWF go without
a fight. In a statement, Stephen Chao, president
of programming and marketing for USA
Networks, said, “We absolutely plan to continue
our relationship” with the WWF.
All a spokesman for the WWF would say about
deal negotiations is that “the USA Network has
been our home for 17 years.”
variety.com
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NOTES FROM BOB
by Bob Ryder
2/2/00
According to a report in Variety, CBS and Fox are fighting to grab WWF programming away from the USA Network.
The Variety story says a deal was almost in place last week that would have kept Smackdown with UPN and moved the USA programs to the CBS owned
TNN cable network. The CBS offer reportedly included a proposal for CBS to obtain an equity position in the WWF.
The deal is up in the air pending a similar offer from Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corp, which is also prepared to put up cash for an equity stake in the WWF
according to Variety.
The Variety report says the WWF has a year and a half left on their USA deal but that the contract could be terminated if certain circumstances dictate.
This is potentially a huge story,
fs.dai.net |
