The talk about WWE going to TV-14 has cooled off in recent weeks.
In July, it was reported by Andrew Zarian that there were plans for Monday Night Raw to become a TV-14 show. He wrote, “Starting July 18th WWE Raw will have a TV-14 rating moving forward on USA Network. The PG Era is over.”
Those plans changed and Zarian later noted that the idea to move to TV-14 is not a dead issue and the memo that was sent out to people in the company was sent out prematurely. Pay-per-view events are listed as TV-14 and if WWE has their way, the weekly shows will get that rating as well.
During an audio show recap on F4WOnline.com, Bryan Alvarez gave one of the reasons why WWE wants the TV-14 rating. If you watched NXT Heatwave, there were several fan chants that were muted but they would be allowed if the show got a rating higher than TV-PG.
“Honestly one of the reasons that they wanted to go TV-14 was because they’re sick of having to edit out these chants,” Alvarez said.
WWE’s product was targeted primarily at younger viewers in the early 90s. In the late 90s, the decision was made to change the rating to TV-14, which allowed them to do edgier storylines targeted more at teenagers and adults.
There is no expectation that the product will go back to the Attitude Era days but a TV-14 rating would allow them more freedom to relax some of their rules for storylines and promos.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit F4WOnline.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. A F4WOnline.com subscription includes the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and daily audio shows in addition to thousands of hours of archived audio shows.
