Gadgetory

hey guys its Casey with the verge so one of the most interesting things we've seen at CES this week is the announcement of the WWE Network it's a way to get 12 monthly pay per views plus original programming plus a library of everything WWE has ever released all for 999 a month but at the same time WWE will be giving up a huge chunk of that revenue they used to make on pay per views it's a gamble the company says they're going to make it up by creating a huge subscriber base but it might not work out we talked to WWE's Perkins Miller about what the move means for wrestling fans and when it could mean for the cable industry at large I think the way we look at it is we have an incredibly rich history we've got this archive that's a hundred thousand hours of programming 52 weeks live programming a year we have a live pay-per-view business and we have our incredibly engaged fans and our fans just live and breathe and love the WWE so for us it was really easy step to take and I think you look out there in the market and the path that's been paved by Netflix Hulu Plus you know people are using these devices in order to consume media like they never have before I think you're going to see a lot more brands potentially like ours be able to make this decision we're hopefully ahead of the curve and will continue to stay there for a little while it's only because of the success of services like Netflix and Hulu which proved that millions of people are willing to cut the cable cord if you give them access to a large number of TV shows and movies at a fraction of the cost in the short term WWE is likely giving up millions in revenue but if the network works you could have implications that go far beyond the world of professional wrestling we're all waiting for the day that we can buy channels like HBO and Showtime a la carte over the Internet if WWE network works that day could come a lot closer but if it doesn't WWE's lucrative pay-per-view network could be going down for the count you