Aditya Chatterjee
Media

Ten Sports signs five-year contract with WWE

The channel will feature high voltage wrestling action across 365 days a year

Ten Sports has recently announced the signing of a five-year contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

The exclusive contract will provide wrestling content to Ten Sports every day of the year for the next five years. The channel has been telecasting WWE matches for the last three years, during which time it has attracted a growing legion of die-hard fans.

In fact, surveys and viewership figures have constantly pegged the WWE programmes as the most popular sports genre after live cricket.

"We are delighted to extend our very strong relationship with the WWE for years to come. Ten Sports' experience with the WWE is that the programmes appeal to every demographic sector of our viewer base, including some very surprising ones - such as housewives!" said Chris McDonald, CEO, Taj Television Ltd, owners of Ten Sports.

Ten Sports plan to spruce up the WWE programmes with various innovative

promotions in near future. "We are looking forward to building up on the WWE property by introducing new and innovative promotional angles around the programmes," he added.

Ten Sports will also continue with its popular WWE contests, which give chance to the fans to watch live WWE action in the US.

"The decision to renew the partnership”, according to Sharmista Rijhwani MD - Taj Television India Pvt. Ltd., “was spurred by the growing popularity of the WWE shows in India and viewer interest in the soap opera style storylines and characters.”

“What's interesting is that during its timeslot, the channel share of WWE leaves behind not just movies, news and English entertainment channels but even some of the popular mass entertainment channels," she adds.

As part of the contract, all the popular WWE shows - RAW, SmackDown!, Heat, Velocity, The Bottom Line, After Burn and The WWE Experience - as well as 14 annual special television events will air on Ten Sports from January 2005 onwards.

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