Warner Bros. is in talks to acquire the WWE library, two individuals with knowledge of the negotiations told TheWrap.
Warners Bros. and the WWE declined to comment.
While the details and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, the library is estimated to have nearly 150,000 hours of content, consisting of television shows, pay-per-view events and house shows dating back to the 1950s. It also contains a large selection of the visual history of modern professional wrestling.
WWE’s home video (DVD) library is currently managed by Cinedigm. It is unclear if the talks would affect the material in this collection.
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The WWE Network, which launched in February, has made use of the library but hasn’t received enough monthly subscribers to make up for its lost pay-per-view orders. At $9.99 per month, it needed 1.3 to 1.4 million subscribers, but the company closed its first quarter with just under 670,000 subscribers and declining PPV revenue. The WWE Network believed it would reach one million subscribers this year.
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The WWE Network is a 24/7-streaming network that features 12 WWE live pay-per-view events, original programming, reality shows, documentaries, classic matches and more than 1,500 hours of video on demand at launch.
For the record: An earlier version of this story indicated that Cinedigm held the entire WWE library. The company holds WWE’s home video (DVD) library.
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