Solution to please WWE fans new and old?

First of all after reading gaffers article 'Are we gonna see a restructuring of the business?'
for some reason gave me the idea for this

You have fans that are pleased with what they see, fans that watch because its available and there, and ex-fans pissed with what its become.

My idea could be a solution to keep all current fans ($$$£££), get back the old fans and give the fans in the middle something to really look foward to

Would be a lengthy process to do this and would take time to make all fans concerned aware of the changes but here it goes

RAW - 2 hrs 30 min long - live - rated 16+
Smackdown - 2 hrs long - live - no rating (thus being appropiate for all ages)
Possibly scrap ECW or keep it for talent devolpment

Now having the rating 16+ would first of all make it aware to parents that the content may be inappropiate for the children, it would give the programme freedom to have more of an adult theme.
By doing this you will loose a lot of younger fans simply because they wouldnt be allowed to watch, but they would still stay tuned to Smackdown because its the only brand which is deemed appropiate for them.

You'd have the obvious kid favourites such as

Hardys
Cena
Batista
HHH
Kennedy
Kane
Undertaker

move or make them stay on Smackdown

For Raw you'd be happy to see guys like morrison pushed and others with similar ability.

Im not sure that RAW would loose much in the rating, i think it could possibly improve, im sure alot of kids will still watch even tho the age rating is in place and the show may be more explicit, but it will draw alot of the older fans back.

The WWE wouldnt loose money in merchandise because Smackdown will still be a hugely popular show with the kids and others that will undoubtably be watching.

i know some may feel that there is nothing wrong and no need to change anything but i think something like this would definitly please everyone and i wonder why they didnt do something similar to this in the first place rather than the direction they have taken, then again i probably dont understand the market well enough to question the WWE

Could anything like this ever happen?

Not a bad plan, but ppv would need to be single branded, else people tuning into No Way Out or w/e would be forced to sit through matches that they don't care about.

Not an awful plan other than that.

A nice idea, but I think Smackdown would have to be your 16+ show. I'm pretty sure that WWE were asked to tone down RAW when they signed their tv deal with USA network, so likely wouldn't allow the sort of changes you're looking for. Not sure on the policy of whichever network Smackdown is with though.

I think they are already changes to raw and smackdown to try and get the veiwing figures up.

Smackdown was known as the wrestling show and raw the big storyline show and recently smackdown has been airing good long matches and having one main story and raw is reverting to its, midcard HA, look at this big main event story weve got ways.

some more tweaking to the raw midcard and some ecw guys stepping up will make raw the top show to most, but smackdown is already at the stage where everything is flowing well.

Maybe a solution would to be keep raw similar to how it is, but just tape it like SD? there is no longer any magic to the fact it is live imo.

Doomhammer wrote:

Not a bad plan, but ppv would need to be single branded, else people tuning into No Way Out or w/e would be forced to sit through matches that they don't care about.

Not an awful plan other than that.

Good point there, i still think you will see most fans still watching both brands and both sets of PPVs but it just gives the option to everyone, and the warning to that RAW may not be suitable for the younger spectators, but it will be attractive to a new set of fans, plus the possiblity of getting some of the older ones back, single branded PPVs would definitly have to be in place tho

thegunman84 wrote:

A nice idea, but I think Smackdown would have to be your 16+ show. I'm pretty sure that WWE were asked to tone down RAW when they signed their tv deal with USA network, so likely wouldn't allow the sort of changes you're looking for. Not sure on the policy of whichever network Smackdown is with though.

Yeh i suppose that would be the logical thing to do, but i think RAW just seems the suitable brand for the 16+, not a huge deal tho, im sure other networks would happily show RAW being 16+ tho