WWE held their fourth-quarter 2015 earnings conference call on Thursday, February 11th, 2016 that featured Michael Weitz (Investor Relations), George Barrios (Chief Financial Officer) and Vince McMahon (CEO & Chairman). Here are the highlights.
– The conference call opens with McMahon praising the record numbers for the quarter. He said that views on videos on YouTube doubled with 8 million views. He said that hopes WWE’s Youtube channel becomes the #1 channel on the service. He brought the international expansion of the WWE network. He listed some of the new shows on the WWE Network. He said that new camp show would be awesome. He said that he is proud of the network and how the quarter went. Vince commented on the stock decline, noting some investors are “obviously not” thrilled about their earnings results.
– George Barrios mentioned that SmackDown ratings were up 15% in this quarter.
– WWE expects WrestleMania to boost business in the second quarter.
– WWE business was up 18% from last year in the fourth quarter.
– WWE Network was fifth on the top ten streaming services on the OTT rankings. Netflix was first.
– WWE expects subscriptions to increase in March because of WrestleMania 32. Barrios stressed this on the call.
– Barrios would not predict a subscription count for the second quarter of 2016.
– Media content is 65% of their revenue for the quarter. In the last five years, revenue from media has increased 10% each year.
– WWE added 185 additional hours of content to the WWE Network.
– Weitz said that they had talked with other streaming services about a bundle deal. They have nothing to announce as of now.
– WWE will add an additional 1000 hours of new content to the network in the first quarter of 2016.
– Vince was asked about the roster being plagued with injuries and how WWE plans to plug the holes in the roster. Vince said that they will be creative, and WrestleMania will be awesome.
– Swerved would be returning soon.
– Barrios would not comment on how many new subscribers the network picked from India in November.
– Vince says ratings are down because people are not watching TV as much. “Ours are down, but not as much as networks that we’re on.” He said that cable is old media and that their audience is watching content when they want to and when they want to. Vince said that they are looking at the new way media is watched, and TV ratings are not what they live and die by.
– Weitz would not comment on how much revenue NXT brings in for the company. He did praise the brand and how much it has grown in recent years.
– WWE plans to expand NXT touring in the US and the UK.
– Vince says WWE gives NBC Universal live content, and that makes their TV deal more important than replays of that live content on YouTube. He feels that live content is more important to them. Vince stressed WWE TV’s biggest strength to TV partner NBCU right now is “live programming; that’s tremendous value.”
– When asked about NXT airing on traditional cable, Barrios said that it’s a great thing for them to decide which content airs where. Whether that be on cable or on the network.
That wraps up the call.
