MONEY IN THE BANK BUYRATE A BIG SUCCESS, WWE HAS NEW SHOW COMING TO USA, WWE NETWORK COMING SOON AND MORE

WWE had their second quarter conference call this morning. Here is the recap of the first part of the call.

Michael Weitz opened the call. He was joined by Vince McMahon and George Barrios.

Weitz opened by saying that WrestleMania being in the second quarter this year and a $3.3M impairment charge from the film "That's What I am" had an effect on the quarter. He mentioned how WrestleMania occurring in the second quarter vs. the first quarter last year skewed the numbers so they would work with figures adjusted to reflect that. Obviously, you can read all of the financial numbers elsewhere on the site.



At that point he turned the call over to Vince McMahon.

Vince said that they were essentially flat vs. last year. He said that it was nothing to be proud of. He said it could be worse given the economy, but it could also be better. He said that part of the reason for the flat rights fees were due to NXT and Superstars not paying any rights fees in the US. He implied that they will be getting fees for them soon.



He also said they are in talks for a live one hour show before Raw on USA. I have heard they are considering doing something like a pre-game show.



He mentioned that TV ratings are up slightly, which is important to the stability of their overall performance.



He mentioned that live event attendance is down 3% vs. 19% for this quarter last year. He said that was a positive, since in essence it stopped the bleeding.



He talked about the flat level of PPVs outside of Mania but said that things were looking up since the early numbers show that the Money In The Bank PPV is up 20% from last year.



He mentioned that while "That's What I Am" was an award winning movie it didn't matter since it lost $3.3 million. He said they will adjust the genre of the movie division, saying " That's What I Am" was a great movie, but it didn't appeal to their audience. They are also going to lower their production budgets.



He said that they are finally rolling out The WWE Network, which he thinks is the most compelling start up network in history. There are meeting this week and next and it's finally rolling out, though he didn't say when.



He said that the live USA show wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with the WWE network. Vince is convinced that the WWE network will be a success.



He then turned the call over to George Barrios, to talk numbers.



Barrios gave his take on the numbers, putting over the success of WrestleMania. WWE All Stars was a success, as was the currency exchange rate since it brought in more dollars from outside of the US when the money changed. Home Video however was down again.



He also put over that Raw's rating was up over 3%.

He then went over the numbers in the report.

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