What is Pay-Per-View?
Pay-Per-View gives you the ability to watch your favorite Hollywood hit movies, along with exciting events and non-stop sports action, all at the touch of a button on your remote control. By ordering a movie on Pay-Per-View you can avoid the long lines and late fees at the video store and still watch a great movie from the comfort of your couch. You can also order exciting sporting events or concerts on Pay-Per-View.
Pay-per-view is a system that most entertainment buffs are familiar with. Pay-per-view, much like it sounds, is a system that enables cable and satellite television subscribers to purchase programming for a one-time view. In existence in one form or another since the late 1950’s, pay-per-view began its rise in popularity in the late 1980s and has expanded to several carriers and various programming. The bulk of pay-per-view purchases are sporting events, and though nearly every sport offers at least one pay-per-view event each year, professional boxing and wrestling account for the majority of sporting event pay-per-view purchases. Sports bars are a large customer base of pay-per-view sporting events, offering patrons the opportunity to watch the event for a cover charge, or sometimes for free, in hopes of recouping their investment through food and drink purchases. Other pay-per-view programming is available in addition to sporting events and typically, concerts and other live events
However, the term “pay-per-view” wasn’t widely used until the 1990s, when companies like iN DEMAND, HBO, and Showtime started using the system to show movies and some of their productions. In Demand would show movies, concerts, and other events, with prices ranging from $3.99 to $49.99, while HBO and Showtime, with their legs TVKO and SET Pay Per View, would offer championship boxing, with prices ranging from $14.99 to $54.99. ESPN has shown college football and basketball games on pay-per-view. The boxing undercard Latin Fury, shown on June 28 of 2003, became ESPN’s first boxing pay-per-view card and also the first pay-per-view boxing card held in Puerto Rico. Pay-per-view is also a very important revenue stream for professional wrestling companies like WWE, which shows fifteen pay-per-view events a year, and TNA, which initially offered weekly pay-per-view in lieu of a national cable television show but now offers monthly pay-per-views like WWE. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) cu
