Question regarding creating your own broadcaster

[Martyn]

Hi. Ive noticed that you can only create an internet based broadcaster, not a cable broadcaster.

 

My ppv broadcaster is averaging way smaller buyrates than the cable one (even though mine is set at huge popularity vs big from the cable one).

 

Is it possible to create your own cable broadcaster?

 

The only options I see are Internet Commercial/Free to Air/Pay Per View/Subscription...

[Remianen]

I don't think so. I've only run through about 10 saves or so but no matter what size I was or how much money I had in the bank, I was only offered Internet broadcasting options. I guess you could give yourself a cable or terrestrial network prior to starting the save (in the pregame database) but I don't know if that's the only way.

[Browning]

This might explain the issues I had with creating my own broadcaster, although I also put too much content onto it. If they are getting lower buy rates than cable ones this might need to be looked at because it seems counter productive. Coverage for existing PPV providers isn’t good enough so you make your own and invest millions and the buy rate goes down? Doesn’t seem right.

 

Were you at least making more money given you got 100% of it?

[DrRDuke]

This might explain the issues I had with creating my own broadcaster, although I also put too much content onto it. If they are getting lower buy rates than cable ones this might need to be looked at because it seems counter productive. Coverage for existing PPV providers isn’t good enough so you make your own and invest millions and the buy rate goes down? Doesn’t seem right.

 

Were you at least making more money given you got 100% of it?

 

I'm just thinking out loud here, but could some of it have to do with brand recognition. You're a wrestling company showing PPV's on Company X, a well known, trusted content provider. You suddenly shift over to a self owned, self run provider with zero brand awareness outside of your fanbase. Company X is able to advertise, promote all of their events to all of their potential customers, of which there is a much larger base. It would seem to me that you would take an initial hit moving content over to an 'in house' PPV operation...at least to start. Similar to the hit WWE took when they 'took back' their PPV's for the Network. They must have seen a decrease in buys/subs/grosses, but now they weren't sharing any of the profits. I think expecting to instantly start making piles of cash when you switch over to an internet based PPV provider, from a terrestrial, well known and trusted provider, is a little unrealistic. Just my take from a real world perspective.

[Browning]

That makes sense from a real world perspective, but my experience seemed a bit weird. I was playing as WWE in a mod and every single PPV gave me a "we didn't gain any popularity due to low coverage" or whatever it is message for every region. There were no PPV providers bigger than "very small" in any region, except a medium one in the US which I wasn't on. As a result I made my own broadcaster, moving from "very small" coverage everywhere except India to "Small" coverage everywhere including India. My first PPV on the new network drew maybe 1/5th of the numbers of my worst previous PPV in the 18 months I've been playing. That didn't seem realistic.

 

I've discussed it in the Small Questions thread, and I think the reason it was so drastically low is I did put Smackdown on the PPV network as well to try and get a few buys out of India (mainly to gain popularity there, I don't need money), which had no other broadcasters, and that was stupid in hindsight, but I'm just experimenting with this save file really. So I'm hoping when I go back to just 1 PPV per month, the numbers will recover, but I would expect a Prime Time slot with Small coverage to draw more viewers than a terrible time slot with Very Small coverage.... if it doesn't then it's not worth investing in a PPV broadcaster really.

[Remianen]

This might explain the issues I had with creating my own broadcaster, although I also put too much content onto it. If they are getting lower buy rates than cable ones this might need to be looked at because it seems counter productive. Coverage for existing PPV providers isn’t good enough so you make your own and invest millions and the buy rate goes down? Doesn’t seem right.

 

Were you at least making more money given you got 100% of it?

 

Are you familiar with how networks work? There is no internet broadcaster that has the actual reach of a primetime (i.e. terrestrial) network. Yes, YouTube has the potential to surpass the reach of say an NBC or CBS or ABC or FOX but they don't produce the same numbers (the numbers advertisers care about). And no internet broadcaster produces the firm, substantiated numbers of a cable network. It's a hierarchy. There was a reason WWE was over the moon when Fox was interested in their programming. WWE Network (internet subscription) doesn't produce the numbers of USA Network (cable commercial) which doesn't produce the numbers of Fox (terrestrial commercial).

 

Given the cost of starting a real network and the game's money cap (999,999,999), I think that's why you have to create a cable or terrestrial network before the game starts. Otherwise, you'd never have enough money to create it ingame. It doesn't need to be looked at. It's set up that way for a reason. We have the option of setting up our own broadcaster but it's not meant to be a replacement for existing broadcasters. It's just an additional option. At some point, you can always shut down your network and get a show on a bigger carrier option.

[Browning]

Are you familiar with how networks work? There is no internet broadcaster that has the actual reach of a primetime (i.e. terrestrial) network. Yes, YouTube has the potential to surpass the reach of say an NBC or CBS or ABC or FOX but they don't produce the same numbers (the numbers advertisers care about). And no internet broadcaster produces the firm, substantiated numbers of a cable network. It's a hierarchy. There was a reason WWE was over the moon when Fox was interested in their programming. WWE Network (internet subscription) doesn't produce the numbers of USA Network (cable commercial) which doesn't produce the numbers of Fox (terrestrial commercial).

 

Given the cost of starting a real network and the game's money cap (999,999,999), I think that's why you have to create a cable or terrestrial network before the game starts. Otherwise, you'd never have enough money to create it ingame. It doesn't need to be looked at. It's set up that way for a reason. We have the option of setting up our own broadcaster but it's not meant to be a replacement for existing broadcasters. It's just an additional option. At some point, you can always shut down your network and get a show on a bigger carrier option.

 

My point is that, in this mod at least, you simply can't. There are no PPV broadcasters available that have the required coverage. My options were "stick on very small forever, and never gain any popularity/any real money from PPVs" or create my own network. If creating my own network is going to give me less buys despite better coverage and better time slots, it's been a complete waste of time.

 

The guide book itself even says PPV broadcasters have restricted coverage, which again, makes sense, but if someone wanted to throw money at creating their own broadcaster to get better coverage, they should get.... better coverage.

[Browning]

I should also stress that I'm fairly sure my problem was caused by what we discussed, airing too many shows. The fact is, even the 3-4 episodes of Smackdown I aired on PPV saw a huge decline in buys after the first 2 weeks, so yea.... I messed up and ruined that 1 PPV. I'm fine with that. It's just of interest to me that this poster has experienced issues with an Internet broadcaster as well, with his seemingly not being self inflicted.

 

I guess my issue is with the understanding of coverage. It's all well and good that a terrestrial channel, in real life, is in almost every house and therefore the best... but then the coverage in game should reflect that. A terrestrial PPV provider should be set to "huge", not "very small", because almost everyone in the country, theoretically, has the option to buy it. I understand from a game perspective why that cannot be the case, because it would hugely inflate buy rates so as to make them not realistic, but by definition, "Small" coverage should be in more homes than "very small" coverage regardless of the type of carrier, is my understanding. If that's wrong then I apologise for the misunderstanding, but that's what would make sense to me, even if it's not overly reflective of real life.

[Martyn]

Just made two seperate pay-per-views to compare the buyrates properly.

 

My own broadcaster with a very big popularity in my company game area:

Buyrate 0.02 (11,480 buys)

 

Cable ppv broadcaster with a big coverage in my company game area:

Buyrate 1,25 (625,234 buys)

 

Something is really wrong here. Not sure if its a bug or what, but I am warning everybody who would like to try it. Ive spend over 20 million in game cash to create it and now Ill have to shut it down and either get some extra cash via editor or struggle with whatever Ive achieved at the moment...

[Browning]

Yea, that looks pretty damning to me. I just ran my next PPV, and there was no improvement in the numbers at all. I'm going to be better off running my events on Commercial broadcasters to make Broadcasting money than I am running them on PPV if those are my numbers. An episode of TV nets me around $400k-500k give or take, my PPV made just over $100k. Granted my commercial deals have much bigger coverage, but those PPV numbers are sickeningly low, and the numbers you've reported there give me no hope it'll get any better if I continue to invest in the broadcaster.