During his latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer stated that due to the disappointing WWE Network numbers, original shows will be cut as the company tries to save money to compensate for the decrease in memberships.
Original programming such as the Edge & Christian hilarious show and the proposed game show with R-Truth have been canned and the WWE UK show is back on hold due to the money it costs the produce. As you may have realized already, WWE has also put a stop to pyrotechnics during shows as another way to save money.
For the second quarter of 2017, WWE had a total of 1.63 million subscribers to the service. Out of that number, 1.56 million were paying subscribers, with the rest on a free trial. In what was a record, the Network also lost a massive 604,000 subscribers during the quarter, although it gained 598,000 new ones.
With virtually no pay-per-view revenue, the Network is a very important stream of revenue for the company and its upward trajectory has cooled down over the past few months.
It’s not excluded that the company will introduce more cost-saving measures in a bid to save money during these challenging times.
