There's a very interesting story at The Hollywood Reporter's website that went up on Friday about ROH's internet PPV efforts.
According to ROH, the numbers look like this:
- Approximately 1,200 people ordered the first IPPV, Final Battle '09, back in December at $14.95 each, grossing close to $18,000.
- ROH's costs were in the $1,000-$1,200 range.
- The gross is split with GoFightLive, so ROH made about $8,000 in profits on the IPPV broadcast.
- They were hoping to double the amount of buys for Saturday's PPV #2, The Big Bang.
It will be interesting to see if they reveal the numbers for The Big Bang and if so, how well it did. For me personally, $15 is too much for an internet PPV that can only be viewed on a computer, and I'm curious if buys would increase proportionately to a lower price.
While it's getting easier to watch internet content on a TV, especially with newer TVs usually having PC monitor inputs, if you don't have a PC near your TV or a laptop, it gets more frustrating. A company like GoFightLive could probably benefit from developing a channel for Roku's line of internet video set top boxes (which are probably best known for their Netflix Watch Instantly and MLB.tv compatibility) now that Roku has released a development kit so anyone can make a channel that can be seen on their boxes. They could even work with MediaMall to make a plugin for their PlayOn software, which re-encodes and streams internet video to many devices compatible with the Universal Plug 'n' Play (UPNP) standard, including the XBox 360 and Playstation 3, plus a number of networked media set top boxes, as well as the Wii via a custom interface using the console's web browser.