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Jamie Kellner
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Sep 11, 2013, 12:51:42 AM9/11/13
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http://officialfan.proboards.com/thread/480752/jamie-kellner?page=1
Sep 5, 2013 at 3:24am QuotePost by y4j1981 on Sep 5, 2013 at 3:24am
I think most people know his name and make him part of the blame as to why WCW isn't around anymore. But I got bored and starting searching random things on Wiki and came upon his page where I believe someone might be having a little fun with his page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Kellner
Despite incredible skepticism, Kellner was part of the team that gave the network the "attitude" that has marked the network ever since. Among the shows that emerged during Kellner's seven years at Fox were The Simpsons, Married... with Children, Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place and In Living Color. Kellner took credit for all these shows, stating that he had dreamed all of these shows up, including the movies 'The Matrix', 'Pretty in Pink' and the highly successful song 'waterfalls' by TLC. Those shows held the fledgling "web" together until Fox shocked the TV world by winning partial rights to the National Football League in 1994 from CBS; that, as well as channel upgrades in many markets due to Fox's alliance and merger with New World Communications, made Fox a legitimate fourth network.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am via the ProBoards App Baldobomb-Albarn, Terroriffic and 2 more like this. QuotePost by Andrew is Good on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:30am JTG Fan likes this. QuotePost by kingoftheindies on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:30am
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am Andrew is Good said:
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
He was right to look to sell it, but taking it off the network was kind of a bad decision. While WCW was losing the company a lot of money, they still got decent ratings compared to the other shows on TNT/TBS. At the same time though, after the AOL merger the company lost a lot more money than WCW could ever dream of losing
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:56am Mega M.O.P., Deacon Dr. Pope and 2 more like this. QuotePost by Djm Doesn't Find You Funny on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:56am
It was also Jamie Kellner that cancelled some of the Silver Age WB Original animated shows, and moved Toonami to Kids WB.
Your childhood was probably ruined by this man.
Sep 5, 2013 at 6:15am Norman Soth and Glitch, greatest FAN like this. QuotePost by Xera Gaddon on Sep 5, 2013 at 6:15am
Jamie Kellner is a giant idiot who should have been fired from his job years ago. That isn't fan bias btw.
To cancel a show that was doing better ratings than everything else on their network is crazy. I've been looking for what replaced Nitro on TNT but cant find any information or how it did in ratings. But from what I have seen from other popular shows shows, they tend to do 1-2's. Nitro did 5's at one point and high 3's most of the time. Raw doesn't do hight 3's now days. So he lost ratings.
As for the money. Yes Nitro was in a hole. But that could have been fixed by introducing a budget. If they don't have access to millions of dollars, then Eric cant spend millions of dollars can he!? Yes WCW would become little better than an indy, but hey, at least it wouldn't loose money. The second factor was that Bishoff was trying to buy WCW and was offering $50 million. By cancelling the TV shows when he did, Kellner cost AOL/TimeWarner $50 million dollars. WCW had already lost the $60 million, so Kellner instead of coping the $10 million loss, ended up costing AOL/TW $110 million.
They do eventually sell WCW to WWF for 3 million, so Kellner looses 47 million in a bad business decision, all because he doesn't respect pro wrestling. If he had waited and cancelled WCW 1 year later, he would have been fine. It would have been Bishoff's and thus his problem.
But the biggest thing for me is his arrogance, to not like something is fine, but to discriminate and exclude it is stupidity. I don't like the show Glee...would I be right in cancelling it?? I also hate first person shooters. So I cancel MOH and Halo. How an I doing business wise?? Exactly.
Sep 5, 2013 at 9:03am QuotePost by JohnnyCurtisAxelRose on Sep 5, 2013 at 9:03am
The thing is though advertisers traditionally aren't that interested in wrestling as they don't want their products to be associated with "lowbrow" programming and they have the misconception that all wrestling fans are poor and won't be able to afford their products anyway. (WWE have been working on changing this perception recently) so even though wrestling gets higher ratings than alot of other content the advertisers are paying the station less than a lower rated show might bring in.
And if a network is after a certain demographic it's silly to have a show that whilst doing high numbers isn't doing a high number in the demographics you're actually trying to build your network around.
the reason USA carry WWE programming is because it pushes the average rating of the whole network up.
Looking at this Kellners guys past record he seems to know what he's doing, he was in charge of the WB during its peak, was working at FOX as it managed to grow from nothing in to a huge network.
And he cancelled the new batman adventures and Superman the animated series which suck balls, can't forgive him for scrapping Animaniacs though.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:35pm QuotePost by Andrew is Good on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:35pm
I have heard a lot of negative things about Jamie Kellner and that he might not be a favourite in television. But in regards with wrestling being low brow, at the time, WCW was the lowest of low brow, and as a wrestling fan and advertiser, I would have looked down on WCW. I think that's one issue I have is that blame really needs to be thrown in the laps of the Vince Russos, Kevin Nash's and Eric Bischoff's of the world for truely putting WCW out of business. Kevin Nash has done interviews blaming issues with AOL Time Warner during that time, once again, ignoring the amount of money they lost. I think it's also another critique of TNA taking them on, when they really bankrupted a company and got it kicked off a network. If WCW was financially stable, they would have kept it. And if they didn't want it, any other network would have grabbed it.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:38pm QuotePost by andrew8798 on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:38pm
They wanted WCW off the network as far back as 93. Ted was the only reason it lasted as long as it did
Sep 5, 2013 at 7:50pm QuotePost by ......whiplash! on Sep 5, 2013 at 7:50pm
He made a decision any television exec would have made if they were in the same position.
Sep 5, 2013 at 11:35pm QuotePost by mizerable on Sep 5, 2013 at 11:35pm
Sep 5, 2013 at 6:49am Spaceballs: The FAN Poster! said:
The ratings don't matter if the show is losing you money. Are you willing to go broke because your show is popular?
No, but I look at the problem as opposed to just discarding it. WCW's problem was that it was overspending when they didn't need to. They were only losing money they couldn't possibly make back, the same way many other expenditures lose money despite doing good business. That's an issue of bad management, not bad programming. IF you had someone who managed the money better, WCW certainly could have still been a viable resource to any network.
WCW certainly sucked during those last couple years for the most part, but I did feel like they were making better booking decisions in their dying days. Too little too late, I guess.
Sep 5, 2013 at 11:55pm QuotePost by jimmyjames on Sep 5, 2013 at 11:55pm
Took credit is right, because there's no way in hell Kellner came up with all those shows, let alone the others mentioned. Ron Leavitt and Michael Moye came up with Married with Children, Aaron Spelling did BH90201 and Melrose Place and Keenan Ivory Wayans did In Living Color. At best he bought the pilots and sold Barry Diller and others on them.
In terms of WCw on TBS and TNT, in reality they were never meant to break the bank. It would have been nice if WCW made a profit or even lost less than they did, but they were a loss leader. They were meant to bring in viewers for other shows, and in the case of Nitro and TNT, to help change what type of channel TNT was, from a station that was essentially old movies, into a general interest station like USA and what they are now. WCW Saturday Night was probably, along with Braves games, the highest rated programming on TBS, which at the time was still WTBS, a local UHF station showing reruns.
Sep 6, 2013 at 4:22am QuotePost by The Dysco Inferno on Sep 6, 2013 at 4:22am
I can't blame Kellner for cancelling WCW, thanks to Bischoff's lavish spending, giving out guaranteed contracts and multi million dollar deals to acts like KISS and Master P, there was no way it was going to turn a profit in the next few years. I do think, had they given Fusient WCW a year to get their act together and find a new home, WCW would be around today as Easy E couldn't spend like he did were the money coming from his own pocket.
I do blame Kellner for the cancellation of the Spielberg animations, however... And Pinky, Elmyra and the brain, yes that was done to appease him.
22 hours ago QuotePost by Malcolm XYZ on 22 hours ago
As far as I'm concerned, Kellner can go to Hell for what he did to Kids WB. He can go to Hell and he can die along with that lady from the CW.
Sep 5, 2013 at 9:03am JohnnyCurtisAxelRose said:
And he cancelled the new batman adventures and Superman the animated series which suck balls, can't forgive him for scrapping Animaniacs though.
22 hours ago QuotePost by celticjobber on 22 hours ago
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am Andrew is Good said:
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
Eric Bischoff and his financial backers were going to buy out WCW. So all TNT would've had to do is air the show, it wouldn't lose them any more money and they could just enjoy the better than average ratings it delivered.
But once Kellner cancelled all WCW programming, the company was basically worthless aside from their tape library.
Aside from Spike, no other networks wanted pro wrestling. With the USA Network, it was WWF or nothing (which is why ECW wasn't able to make a deal with them after RAW went to Spike).
19 hours ago QuotePost by jimmyjames on 19 hours ago
True about the lack of stations. Even USA let TNN outbid it for Raw. A lot of it is snobbery. They like the profits wrestling bring, but they want to distance themselves from it. Remember when USA use to preempt Raw for the Westminster Dog Show, and that was during the height of the Attitude Era.
17 hours ago RowdyRobbyPiper likes this. QuotePost by EddieJ1984 on 17 hours ago
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
http://officialfan.proboards.com/thread/480752/jamie-kellner?page=2
15 hours ago RowdyRobbyPiper likes this. QuotePost by futureraven on 15 hours ago
22 hours ago celticjobber said:
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am Andrew is Good said:
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
Eric Bischoff and his financial backers were going to buy out WCW. So all TNT would've had to do is air the show, it wouldn't lose them any more money and they could just enjoy the better than average ratings it delivered.
But once Kellner cancelled all WCW programming, the company was basically worthless aside from their tape library.
Aside from Spike, no other networks wanted pro wrestling. With the USA Network, it was WWF or nothing (which is why ECW wasn't able to make a deal with them after RAW went to Spike).
This is what I came here to say.
In fact, by cancelling it, he lost them even more millions of dollars by making it completely worthless so Vince got it for relative pennies and Time Warner were still paying the ridiculous wages of Hogan etc.
13 hours ago QuotePost by kingoftheindies on 13 hours ago
17 hours ago EddieJ1984 said:
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
Were they rebranding that early to that? I know the AOL Merger resulted in them having to sell a lot of assets.
I think I also read that Eric's backers eventually just said "f*** It" because Kellner kept making changes to deals after being agreed upon. Like I guess they were still going to buy WCW even after they lost TV, but they offered significantly less. A price was agreed, but Kellner kept making changes to the deal. From what guys close to Bischoff have said, I'm under the impression that he had some kind of deals worked out that would help get WCW on steady ground, but again, the money guys were just sick of dealing with Kellner
10 hours ago QuotePost by RowdyRobbyPiper on 10 hours ago
13 hours ago kingoftheindies said:
17 hours ago EddieJ1984 said:
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
Were they rebranding that early to that? I know the AOL Merger resulted in them having to sell a lot of assets.
I think I also read that Eric's backers eventually just said "f*** It" because Kellner kept making changes to deals after being agreed upon. Like I guess they were still going to buy WCW even after they lost TV, but they offered significantly less. A price was agreed, but Kellner kept making changes to the deal. From what guys close to Bischoff have said, I'm under the impression that he had some kind of deals worked out that would help get WCW on steady ground, but again, the money guys were just sick of dealing with Kellner
Which tells me that Kellner wanted to get rid of WCW no matter what.
9 hours ago QuotePost by NOwave on 9 hours ago
Most of the things said here are probably true: The ownership of TNT/TBS wanted to distance itself from wrestling, even when they made money. Jamie Kellner let his disdain for wrestling cloud his judgement, he decided he'd get rid of WCW no matter what.
WCW was entity unlike any other program TNT/TBS owned. They did pretty good ratings, even at it's worst, which allowed TNT to make money from selling advertising time, just like any other entertainment show would. However, in addition to a televised product, they also had a live show business, and that was losing money. If Kellner had been smart, he would have sold the business to Fusient for $50 million (or whatever was offered) AND kept the TV product on the air. That way, the network would not be responsible for the live show-business side of WCW, and still would have made the advertising revenue, AND made $50 million to boot!
8 hours ago QuotePost by Glitch, greatest FAN on 8 hours ago
That man has quite an ego if he sees himself as "dreaming up" all those shows he takes credit for.
This jerk said that even if wcw were able to become profitable, he still wouldn't want it on the network. so that right there shows you he did this entirely based on his tastes.
7 hours ago QuotePost by ritt on 7 hours ago
13 hours ago kingoftheindies said:
17 hours ago EddieJ1984 said:
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
Were they rebranding that early to that? I know the AOL Merger resulted in them having to sell a lot of assets.
I think I also read that Eric's backers eventually just said "f*** It" because Kellner kept making changes to deals after being agreed upon. Like I guess they were still going to buy WCW even after they lost TV, but they offered significantly less. A price was agreed, but Kellner kept making changes to the deal. From what guys close to Bischoff have said, I'm under the impression that he had some kind of deals worked out that would help get WCW on steady ground, but again, the money guys were just sick of dealing with Kellner
That's Eric's side of it. Another story going around is that Bischoff kept changing what he was selling his backers. At first they were getting Hogan and the all the big names that Time-Warner were footing the bill for, kind of like the current TNA arrangement. Then when Kellner axed that idea Bishoff was going to rebuild with a cruiserweight show and a lot of backers got cold feet. Then he came up with another plan and by that time Vince stepped in and said here's five bucks I'll take this junk off your yard.
However, as terrible a businessman as Eric was, Kellner was worse and without a doubt the sole reason WCW folded. Ted had the bankroll and desire to keep it going at the losses it was accumulating for a long time. Kellner believed his own hype and make turner networks into the next Fox. The irony is Kellner is perfect for wrestling. He takes all the credit for the out of the blue successes and completely ignores show like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and The Wilton North Show. Weird to how the man who takes credit for some of the most controversial trashy programming of the late eighties thought wrestling gave a network a bad image.
hours ago QuotePost by EddieJ1984 on 2 hours ago
TNT's "We Know Drama" rebrand happened on June 12, 2001. So I would think they were planning for it in March 2001 and had an idea of what they wanted on the channel and what they didn't.
Sep 5, 2013 at 3:24am QuotePost by y4j1981 on Sep 5, 2013 at 3:24am
I think most people know his name and make him part of the blame as to why WCW isn't around anymore. But I got bored and starting searching random things on Wiki and came upon his page where I believe someone might be having a little fun with his page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Kellner
Despite incredible skepticism, Kellner was part of the team that gave the network the "attitude" that has marked the network ever since. Among the shows that emerged during Kellner's seven years at Fox were The Simpsons, Married... with Children, Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place and In Living Color. Kellner took credit for all these shows, stating that he had dreamed all of these shows up, including the movies 'The Matrix', 'Pretty in Pink' and the highly successful song 'waterfalls' by TLC. Those shows held the fledgling "web" together until Fox shocked the TV world by winning partial rights to the National Football League in 1994 from CBS; that, as well as channel upgrades in many markets due to Fox's alliance and merger with New World Communications, made Fox a legitimate fourth network.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am via the ProBoards App Baldobomb-Albarn, Terroriffic and 2 more like this. QuotePost by Andrew is Good on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:30am JTG Fan likes this. QuotePost by kingoftheindies on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:30am
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am Andrew is Good said:
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
He was right to look to sell it, but taking it off the network was kind of a bad decision. While WCW was losing the company a lot of money, they still got decent ratings compared to the other shows on TNT/TBS. At the same time though, after the AOL merger the company lost a lot more money than WCW could ever dream of losing
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:56am Mega M.O.P., Deacon Dr. Pope and 2 more like this. QuotePost by Djm Doesn't Find You Funny on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:56am
It was also Jamie Kellner that cancelled some of the Silver Age WB Original animated shows, and moved Toonami to Kids WB.
Your childhood was probably ruined by this man.
Sep 5, 2013 at 6:15am Norman Soth and Glitch, greatest FAN like this. QuotePost by Xera Gaddon on Sep 5, 2013 at 6:15am
Jamie Kellner is a giant idiot who should have been fired from his job years ago. That isn't fan bias btw.
To cancel a show that was doing better ratings than everything else on their network is crazy. I've been looking for what replaced Nitro on TNT but cant find any information or how it did in ratings. But from what I have seen from other popular shows shows, they tend to do 1-2's. Nitro did 5's at one point and high 3's most of the time. Raw doesn't do hight 3's now days. So he lost ratings.
As for the money. Yes Nitro was in a hole. But that could have been fixed by introducing a budget. If they don't have access to millions of dollars, then Eric cant spend millions of dollars can he!? Yes WCW would become little better than an indy, but hey, at least it wouldn't loose money. The second factor was that Bishoff was trying to buy WCW and was offering $50 million. By cancelling the TV shows when he did, Kellner cost AOL/TimeWarner $50 million dollars. WCW had already lost the $60 million, so Kellner instead of coping the $10 million loss, ended up costing AOL/TW $110 million.
They do eventually sell WCW to WWF for 3 million, so Kellner looses 47 million in a bad business decision, all because he doesn't respect pro wrestling. If he had waited and cancelled WCW 1 year later, he would have been fine. It would have been Bishoff's and thus his problem.
But the biggest thing for me is his arrogance, to not like something is fine, but to discriminate and exclude it is stupidity. I don't like the show Glee...would I be right in cancelling it?? I also hate first person shooters. So I cancel MOH and Halo. How an I doing business wise?? Exactly.
Sep 5, 2013 at 9:03am QuotePost by JohnnyCurtisAxelRose on Sep 5, 2013 at 9:03am
The thing is though advertisers traditionally aren't that interested in wrestling as they don't want their products to be associated with "lowbrow" programming and they have the misconception that all wrestling fans are poor and won't be able to afford their products anyway. (WWE have been working on changing this perception recently) so even though wrestling gets higher ratings than alot of other content the advertisers are paying the station less than a lower rated show might bring in.
And if a network is after a certain demographic it's silly to have a show that whilst doing high numbers isn't doing a high number in the demographics you're actually trying to build your network around.
the reason USA carry WWE programming is because it pushes the average rating of the whole network up.
Looking at this Kellners guys past record he seems to know what he's doing, he was in charge of the WB during its peak, was working at FOX as it managed to grow from nothing in to a huge network.
And he cancelled the new batman adventures and Superman the animated series which suck balls, can't forgive him for scrapping Animaniacs though.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:35pm QuotePost by Andrew is Good on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:35pm
I have heard a lot of negative things about Jamie Kellner and that he might not be a favourite in television. But in regards with wrestling being low brow, at the time, WCW was the lowest of low brow, and as a wrestling fan and advertiser, I would have looked down on WCW. I think that's one issue I have is that blame really needs to be thrown in the laps of the Vince Russos, Kevin Nash's and Eric Bischoff's of the world for truely putting WCW out of business. Kevin Nash has done interviews blaming issues with AOL Time Warner during that time, once again, ignoring the amount of money they lost. I think it's also another critique of TNA taking them on, when they really bankrupted a company and got it kicked off a network. If WCW was financially stable, they would have kept it. And if they didn't want it, any other network would have grabbed it.
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:38pm QuotePost by andrew8798 on Sep 5, 2013 at 5:38pm
They wanted WCW off the network as far back as 93. Ted was the only reason it lasted as long as it did
Sep 5, 2013 at 7:50pm QuotePost by ......whiplash! on Sep 5, 2013 at 7:50pm
He made a decision any television exec would have made if they were in the same position.
Sep 5, 2013 at 11:35pm QuotePost by mizerable on Sep 5, 2013 at 11:35pm
Sep 5, 2013 at 6:49am Spaceballs: The FAN Poster! said:
The ratings don't matter if the show is losing you money. Are you willing to go broke because your show is popular?
No, but I look at the problem as opposed to just discarding it. WCW's problem was that it was overspending when they didn't need to. They were only losing money they couldn't possibly make back, the same way many other expenditures lose money despite doing good business. That's an issue of bad management, not bad programming. IF you had someone who managed the money better, WCW certainly could have still been a viable resource to any network.
WCW certainly sucked during those last couple years for the most part, but I did feel like they were making better booking decisions in their dying days. Too little too late, I guess.
Sep 5, 2013 at 11:55pm QuotePost by jimmyjames on Sep 5, 2013 at 11:55pm
Took credit is right, because there's no way in hell Kellner came up with all those shows, let alone the others mentioned. Ron Leavitt and Michael Moye came up with Married with Children, Aaron Spelling did BH90201 and Melrose Place and Keenan Ivory Wayans did In Living Color. At best he bought the pilots and sold Barry Diller and others on them.
In terms of WCw on TBS and TNT, in reality they were never meant to break the bank. It would have been nice if WCW made a profit or even lost less than they did, but they were a loss leader. They were meant to bring in viewers for other shows, and in the case of Nitro and TNT, to help change what type of channel TNT was, from a station that was essentially old movies, into a general interest station like USA and what they are now. WCW Saturday Night was probably, along with Braves games, the highest rated programming on TBS, which at the time was still WTBS, a local UHF station showing reruns.
Sep 6, 2013 at 4:22am QuotePost by The Dysco Inferno on Sep 6, 2013 at 4:22am
I can't blame Kellner for cancelling WCW, thanks to Bischoff's lavish spending, giving out guaranteed contracts and multi million dollar deals to acts like KISS and Master P, there was no way it was going to turn a profit in the next few years. I do think, had they given Fusient WCW a year to get their act together and find a new home, WCW would be around today as Easy E couldn't spend like he did were the money coming from his own pocket.
I do blame Kellner for the cancellation of the Spielberg animations, however... And Pinky, Elmyra and the brain, yes that was done to appease him.
22 hours ago QuotePost by Malcolm XYZ on 22 hours ago
As far as I'm concerned, Kellner can go to Hell for what he did to Kids WB. He can go to Hell and he can die along with that lady from the CW.
Sep 5, 2013 at 9:03am JohnnyCurtisAxelRose said:
And he cancelled the new batman adventures and Superman the animated series which suck balls, can't forgive him for scrapping Animaniacs though.
22 hours ago QuotePost by celticjobber on 22 hours ago
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am Andrew is Good said:
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
Eric Bischoff and his financial backers were going to buy out WCW. So all TNT would've had to do is air the show, it wouldn't lose them any more money and they could just enjoy the better than average ratings it delivered.
But once Kellner cancelled all WCW programming, the company was basically worthless aside from their tape library.
Aside from Spike, no other networks wanted pro wrestling. With the USA Network, it was WWF or nothing (which is why ECW wasn't able to make a deal with them after RAW went to Spike).
19 hours ago QuotePost by jimmyjames on 19 hours ago
True about the lack of stations. Even USA let TNN outbid it for Raw. A lot of it is snobbery. They like the profits wrestling bring, but they want to distance themselves from it. Remember when USA use to preempt Raw for the Westminster Dog Show, and that was during the height of the Attitude Era.
17 hours ago RowdyRobbyPiper likes this. QuotePost by EddieJ1984 on 17 hours ago
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
http://officialfan.proboards.com/thread/480752/jamie-kellner?page=2
15 hours ago RowdyRobbyPiper likes this. QuotePost by futureraven on 15 hours ago
22 hours ago celticjobber said:
Sep 5, 2013 at 5:25am Andrew is Good said:
Jamie Kellner was right to get rid of WCW from the network. If you saw an entity that lost 60 million dollars, would you get rid of it? The people who were involved with losing that money in 2000 and the downfall in 1998-1999 were responsible and Kellner said f*** this.
Eric Bischoff and his financial backers were going to buy out WCW. So all TNT would've had to do is air the show, it wouldn't lose them any more money and they could just enjoy the better than average ratings it delivered.
But once Kellner cancelled all WCW programming, the company was basically worthless aside from their tape library.
Aside from Spike, no other networks wanted pro wrestling. With the USA Network, it was WWF or nothing (which is why ECW wasn't able to make a deal with them after RAW went to Spike).
This is what I came here to say.
In fact, by cancelling it, he lost them even more millions of dollars by making it completely worthless so Vince got it for relative pennies and Time Warner were still paying the ridiculous wages of Hogan etc.
13 hours ago QuotePost by kingoftheindies on 13 hours ago
17 hours ago EddieJ1984 said:
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
Were they rebranding that early to that? I know the AOL Merger resulted in them having to sell a lot of assets.
I think I also read that Eric's backers eventually just said "f*** It" because Kellner kept making changes to deals after being agreed upon. Like I guess they were still going to buy WCW even after they lost TV, but they offered significantly less. A price was agreed, but Kellner kept making changes to the deal. From what guys close to Bischoff have said, I'm under the impression that he had some kind of deals worked out that would help get WCW on steady ground, but again, the money guys were just sick of dealing with Kellner
10 hours ago QuotePost by RowdyRobbyPiper on 10 hours ago
13 hours ago kingoftheindies said:
17 hours ago EddieJ1984 said:
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
Were they rebranding that early to that? I know the AOL Merger resulted in them having to sell a lot of assets.
I think I also read that Eric's backers eventually just said "f*** It" because Kellner kept making changes to deals after being agreed upon. Like I guess they were still going to buy WCW even after they lost TV, but they offered significantly less. A price was agreed, but Kellner kept making changes to the deal. From what guys close to Bischoff have said, I'm under the impression that he had some kind of deals worked out that would help get WCW on steady ground, but again, the money guys were just sick of dealing with Kellner
Which tells me that Kellner wanted to get rid of WCW no matter what.
9 hours ago QuotePost by NOwave on 9 hours ago
Most of the things said here are probably true: The ownership of TNT/TBS wanted to distance itself from wrestling, even when they made money. Jamie Kellner let his disdain for wrestling cloud his judgement, he decided he'd get rid of WCW no matter what.
WCW was entity unlike any other program TNT/TBS owned. They did pretty good ratings, even at it's worst, which allowed TNT to make money from selling advertising time, just like any other entertainment show would. However, in addition to a televised product, they also had a live show business, and that was losing money. If Kellner had been smart, he would have sold the business to Fusient for $50 million (or whatever was offered) AND kept the TV product on the air. That way, the network would not be responsible for the live show-business side of WCW, and still would have made the advertising revenue, AND made $50 million to boot!
8 hours ago QuotePost by Glitch, greatest FAN on 8 hours ago
That man has quite an ego if he sees himself as "dreaming up" all those shows he takes credit for.
This jerk said that even if wcw were able to become profitable, he still wouldn't want it on the network. so that right there shows you he did this entirely based on his tastes.
7 hours ago QuotePost by ritt on 7 hours ago
13 hours ago kingoftheindies said:
17 hours ago EddieJ1984 said:
Another thing was they were rebranding TNT, and I guess WCW didn't fit "We Know Drama" (Viagara on a pole isn't drama?!)
Were they rebranding that early to that? I know the AOL Merger resulted in them having to sell a lot of assets.
I think I also read that Eric's backers eventually just said "f*** It" because Kellner kept making changes to deals after being agreed upon. Like I guess they were still going to buy WCW even after they lost TV, but they offered significantly less. A price was agreed, but Kellner kept making changes to the deal. From what guys close to Bischoff have said, I'm under the impression that he had some kind of deals worked out that would help get WCW on steady ground, but again, the money guys were just sick of dealing with Kellner
That's Eric's side of it. Another story going around is that Bischoff kept changing what he was selling his backers. At first they were getting Hogan and the all the big names that Time-Warner were footing the bill for, kind of like the current TNA arrangement. Then when Kellner axed that idea Bishoff was going to rebuild with a cruiserweight show and a lot of backers got cold feet. Then he came up with another plan and by that time Vince stepped in and said here's five bucks I'll take this junk off your yard.
However, as terrible a businessman as Eric was, Kellner was worse and without a doubt the sole reason WCW folded. Ted had the bankroll and desire to keep it going at the losses it was accumulating for a long time. Kellner believed his own hype and make turner networks into the next Fox. The irony is Kellner is perfect for wrestling. He takes all the credit for the out of the blue successes and completely ignores show like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and The Wilton North Show. Weird to how the man who takes credit for some of the most controversial trashy programming of the late eighties thought wrestling gave a network a bad image.
hours ago QuotePost by EddieJ1984 on 2 hours ago
TNT's "We Know Drama" rebrand happened on June 12, 2001. So I would think they were planning for it in March 2001 and had an idea of what they wanted on the channel and what they didn't.
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