WWE has been working on the introduction of a new WWE Network launch that will take place later this year.
The new platform, which WWE partnered with the Endeavor streaming company on, was referred to as a “re-launch” of the Network at one point during today’s Q1 earnings call with WWE executives. WWE Co-President George Barrios noted that their team has been working on the new platform for over a year, and they are very excited for it to be released.
Barrios said the new platform will introduce new features that fans have been asking for, and they believe it will help with the growth of the Network. The new platform will develop over the next few years and they are excited about what it will grow into.
Barrios would not confirm which quarter the re-launch will happen in, but he did say it will take place in 2019.
WWE officials have been talking about introducing a tiered pricing version of the Network for a while now. It was noted earlier this year in the 2018 Q4 earnings call that they were “developing the next iteration” of the Network. There’s no word yet on details of the new platform or possible tiered plans, but WWE issued a survey in 2018 that gauged interest on a potential premium tier of the Network, which would offer “more content, features, and perks” for $15 per month.
WWE announced today in the earnings report that the Network averaged 1.584 million paid subscribers in the first quarter, up 1.7% from the 1.558 million average subscribers from the prior year quarter. The Network averaged 1.157 million paid domestic subscribers in Q1, up 1.8% from the 1.136 million in the same quarter last year. WWE projects an average of 1.70 million subscribers for Q2, down from 5% the same quarter last year. WWE had a total of 1.643 million total subscribers, paid and free, for the end of the first quarter of this year. WWE announced the day after WrestleMania 35 that they had reached a total of 2 million subscribers, paid and free.