Bengaluru, February 8: WWE’s recent drop in TV ratings and live event attendance have not been a secret and it continued for most of 2018 with drab shows. So that raised concerns among the fans who protested over the social media.

The demand for change was addressed at the end of the year when the McMahons returned to take over both WWE Raw and Smackdown. Since then, the quality content produced has increased the ratings as we head towards Wrestlemania 35.

Now Vince McMahon attended WWE’s fourth quarter 2018 media call last night to discuss the burning issues that are within the company. As stated earlier, the biggest headache had been the decline in TV ratings as well as the decrease in Live Event attendance. The Boss gave reasons for these and they seemed fair enough.

On the drop in TV ratings, The Chairman of the board mentioned Roman Reigns’ absence as the main reason. Reigns was sort of a central character in the company and to take time-off suddenly. So, a negative impact was always bound to happen once he had to leave to fight off Leukemia.

Here’s the statement made by senior McMahon where he stresses on Roman Reigns' loss being a big reason to the drop in ratings and attendance,

“It's no different if you're writing a soap opera and all of a sudden your main character wasn't there. You're in the middle of production, what do you do? You very nimbly change the storyline, but it's not as good as the original one. Sometimes it is better because we're pretty good at it, but those are things that we're faced with, and one of the reasons why television ratings have dropped. And one of the reasons, obviously, from a live event standpoint, that's dropped too. Because if you don't have your favorites on television, obviously you can't see them at a live event either.”

The Boss continued that multiple injuries at the same time came as a major blow to the company. It’s really hard to make-up for all these absences as each of them had their own fanbase. Additionally, John Cena could have come in handy to replace Roman Reigns from TV. But thanks to his Hollywood stint, he remained unavailable. However, Vince McMahon congratulated the Cenation Leader for his accomplishments,

“This year, leading up to where we are now, we've had an inornate number of injuries. And when you have injuries... you know, there's a whole bunch of them. Roman Reigns being the principle among them. And even John Cena, not an injury type thing but we thought we were going to have John be more of a part of our programming than we do. John, God bless him, is making more movies. And even John, I would think, would say, 'Geez, I thought I was going to spend more time with what I love to do,' which is WWE. So, he's been coming in and out, he's not really a part of our storyline.”

WWE’s revenue report from the fourth quarter does not show the shortcomings, at all. The company managed to pull off a huge chunk in terms of profit like never before. So, that is expected to offer more paychecks to some of the mainstay superstars on the roster.

Below-given are the highlights from WWE’s business in the fourth quarter which maintained a steady improvement rate despite all the barriers, (Thanks to WrestlingINC for the stats and quotes)

* Revenues increased 29% to $272.5 million as compared to the prior year quarter

* Operating income nearly doubled to $53.4 million from $27.0 million in the prior year quarter

* Adjusted OIBDA increased 57% to $64.4 million, exceeding Company guidance and representing an all-time record quarter

* WWE Network average paid subscribers increased 7% to approximately 1.59 million paid subscribers, consistent with Company guidance. (Credit to wrestlingINC.com for the stats and quotes)