Eric Bischoff On A Two-Hour Show Being Easier To Produce Than A Three-Hour Show

(Photo Credit: WWE)

WWE Hall of Famer and former WCW President Eric Bischoff appeared on an episode of his 83 weeks podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including a two-hour show being easier to produce than a three-hour show.

Bischoff said, โ€œAbsolutely easier to be more consistent and produce high quality shows with a two-hour format than a three-hour format. Itโ€™s โ€” I mean look, it doesnโ€™t matter what your favorite television series may be, if you sell three hours of it once a week, 52 weeks a year, it wouldnโ€™t probably be your favorite show for very long. Itโ€™s just difficult. But I think the two-hour format โ€” because itโ€™s easier to produce, because itโ€™s easier to hold the audienceโ€™s attention. Because itโ€™s easier in many ways to build anticipation and tell a story that will resonate within a two-hour format, as opposed to a three, I think itโ€™ll increase the overall action to the show. I think youโ€™ll grow the audience, I think more people watch wrestling. I think more people will make a commitment to invest two hours and then make a commitment to invest three hours. I think all in all, it would be a good move in the long run. In the short term, yeah, youโ€™re giving up some revenue. Because thereโ€™s an hour less content, thereโ€™s an hour less opportunity to make money. But in the long term, I think the success of the show will be enhanced with a two-hour format versus a three.โ€

On why WCW changed The Sandmanโ€™s entrance from what he did in ECW:

โ€œThis is standards and practices. And yep, we previously had seen Big Show come out with a cigarette, probably a year before this perhaps. Whenever it was. Sandman coming down with a cigarette didnโ€™t necessarily pose a problem. Drinking alcohol, for us in WCW and Turner Broadcasting at the time, was a standards and practices issue. Clearly it was not in WWE, because [Steve] Austin was making chugging beer famous. And it was doing extremely well. But this is another one of the โ€” you know, seemingly little [things].โ€

โ€œI said in the documentary, Who Killed WCW?. The death of WCW, if you want to call it a death, was by 1,000 cuts. It wasnโ€™t any one thing. And one of those cuts โ€” two of them now, that weโ€™ve seen already in this show in 1999, was one, the obvious reduction in the budget production budget so that we couldnโ€™t have the type of energetic open and to reaffirm to the audience that thereโ€™s a really good reason to be here tonight, and all that good shit. We had to lose that, weโ€™re losing a little bit of creative freedom with regards to standards and practices. All the while WWE is turning up the volume on the Attitude Era. This is just a perfect kind of juxtaposition between what was really going on in WCW behind the scenes. Not in the ring, not in the locker room, Iโ€™m talking about WCWโ€™s business. Looking at the juxtaposition here against what WWE was doing in time. It was pretty amazing.โ€

On whether WCW had talks with Sable:

โ€œSomebody else โ€” again, a Terry Taylor, Kevin Nash, or somebody may have had a conversation with her about her that didnโ€™t make it to me. But I never had any conversations with anybody about Rena Mero. Iโ€™m not even sure she was interested in coming. I think she was interested in stirring some s**t up.โ€

You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.

(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)