Breaking The Walls Down - Comcast Could Hurt The WWE Submitted by Chris Dailey on Monday, February 23, 2004 at 9:54 PM EST
Breaking The Walls Down
Hello all and welcome back to another edition of Breaking The Walls Down. I am typing this what appears to be a nice version of the stomach flu that is going around. I’m glad I don’t get the flu that often, as this really is not fun. News is sort of slow, so I will go straight to the column and forgo Bits and Pieces.
Comcast Could Hurt The WWE
A good friend of mine always orders the PPVs and is kind enough to let me and all the other guys come over to his place and watch the PPVs for free. Imagine our displeasure when we showed up to Tim’s house (my friend) for the latest PPV only to find out that Comcast is no longer allowing anyone who has the “basic” cable box to order PPVs. In order for anyone to order PPVs on Comcast’s network in the Reading area of Pennsylvania, one must now have digital cable.
Why am I writing about this? Well, it got me to thinking. Comcast is more than simply a Reading, Pennsylvania company. They are a financial juggernaut that spans across the nation. And, it was made even more apparent how large Comcast has gotten last week when Comcast proposed a hostile takeover of the Disney Corporation. Comcast is becoming one of the, if not the, cable company in America. Sure, you can go satellite and get more channels at a somewhat reasonable price, but you have to put up with the worry of damage to your dish, storms, etc.
But, what does this have to do with wrestling? It has everything to do with wrestling. For those of us on a tight budget, or those of us who aren’t home enough to warrant buying a digital cable box, the regular cable box is our answer. We get over 60 channels of television, that’s enough for most people. I know from experience, that digital cable is costly and provides little extra benefit. The only channels I watched on a consistent basis were the extra Discovery Channels, certainly not enough to warrant the additional cost of one or more digital cable boxes.
Yet Comcast has now decreed that it is necessary to have the digital cable box, leaving the rest of us out in the cold who have only a regular cable box.
The one thing to keep in mind is that while rates continue to rise, I do not see an COLAs (Cost of Living Adjustments) being done on people’s salaries to counteract these rise in costs. This problem is not going to make me go out and buy the digital cable box. In fact, it really ticks me off. Eventually, will I get a digital cable box once again, probably, when the price comes down.
Now the question must be asked, “Will this affect the WWE’s buyrate?” I think in some insignificant way, yes. I don’t think that this will be a huge problem for the WWE, but this does come at an inopportune for the WWE. Wrestlemania XX is right around the corner. The WWE is banking on a huge buyrate from its fanbase. What I am curious to find out is, will this put a dent in the buyrate for Wrestlemnia XX?
Actually, I wonder how much damage it did to the Smackdown PPV in February. This announcement came the week of the PPV in my area. Now, when I called my local cable company the next day, the person I talked to confirmed I (along with anyone else who has a regular cable box) will not be able to order PPVs any longer. When I asked her if this was a national policy, she did not know.
This could mean that either this process was done in one swoop (which I doubt, because the Internet would have been buzzing about this) or it could be something that is slowly starting to spread throughout Comcast’s network. If this is the case (which seems more likely), what kind of damage could it do by Wrestlemania XX?
What I am kind of curious is, to gauge where Comcast stands on this. I don’t know if I’ll make a future column about it or not, but I would like to hear from you, the reader, if you have heard anything about this in your area. If you could, let me know via e-mail if you have Comcast or if a friend of yours in the area has heard of such a thing with their local Comcast provider. I am curious to see how widespread this has become.
