As PWMania.com previously reported, CM Punk reportedly assisted in the renewal of talks between WWE and Warner Brothers Discovery for a potential RAW media rights deal. WBD was said to have met with Paul Levesque aka Triple H, Nick Khan, and TKO’s Marc Shapiro last week.
This week, it was revealed that executives from WBD and Paramount had met to discuss a possible merger. During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com asked if a possible deal between WWE and WBD was “still in play” despite the merger talks.
Meltzer said, “It’s majorly in play. Absolutely in play, yes. Look, you know that in the TV world, having number one has its value over having number two. (In terms of) cost per viewer, RAW is so much more expensive than AEW, even if AEW had a big raise, it’d still be cheaper per viewer. Also the AEW viewer is a 13% higher money earner than a WWE viewer. There’s that value too which is rarely talked about. But in the end WWE is still number one and WWE also has the ability, whether on TNT or TBS, to raise the station average (ratings).
With AEW, it’s a very successful show on Wednesday, it raises the TBS weekly average a little bit, but very little, where RAW would make a much bigger difference as far as raising the average and making the station look better in the rankings of the stations.”
