FITE COO Michael Weber Says AEW Dynamite Live Viewership In The UK Is "Staggering"

For most AEW fans outside of the United States, FITE TV is their best option at viewing Dynamite and other programming. FITE's COO Michael Weber talked about how AEW is performing for their streaming service when he joined The Wrestling Inc Daily podcast.

"We offer a subscription called AEW Plus that's not available in the US, Canada, Germany or France but is available in the rest of the world. It's been bought in over 100 countries and initially the interest was very encouraging and it's had a steady climb. I would say it's not a rocket ship but it's a steady climb with no fall off," stated Weber.

"What gets me is that I get the numbers of people watching it live and it's quite staggering how many people are watching it live from Europe which is early in the morning. They have a strong and loyal following. The last PPV event, Revolution, was the highest-purchased event out of the six shows we've done with them?

"They're doing everything right at the moment. It looks really good and we're excited to see that."

The coronavirus outbreak hit Japan before it did the United States and New Japan cancelled events before most US promotions went dark. Weber was asked about New Japan's response to the outbreak as well as their outlook.

"I don't know if I saw the crystal ball but we were concerned and saw things being cancelled. I have been in contact with New Japan quite a bit and the good thing is that they got ahead of things from what I'm gathering," Weber said before noting that NJPW isn't the only Japanese programming they have.

"I have a feeling they might be back at the end of April. I'm positive they're gonna be back before the US is. They put a great program together and it might be one of those silver linings. We've got some stuff we've been working on too out of the box as we're looking for music opportunities on our platform as we know musicians aren't playing either at venues. So, they're looking for a place."

Weber then said just that morning they were discussing alternative programming that was popular during Medieval times.

"I can't give all the details but it's jousting. It's guys in armor and on horses and it's pretty serious stuff," said Weber. "It's not live, which is our forte, but it's pretty entertaining. If you wanna see people getting the hell beat out of them on horses, we've got it."

FITE TV allows fans to watch many older events but their streaming service is centered around live events. Weber talked about how FITE is adapting to the lack of live events.

"We have a lot of good, free content and then a lot of PPV programming and as many as 30 live shows a weekend. We launched yesterday FITE 24/7 for people too lazy to figure out what they wanna watch [laughs]. You can watch MMA, boxing, wrestling shows one after another and it's a good way to get a taste of the programming on FITE," said Weber.

"We're also working on some other programming that we'll probably roll out in a week or so where for one price you can see a lot of PPV events that already aired. Let's face it ? we've got our most captive audience ever because everybody is at their homes."

He then plugged all the ways you can view the new FITE 24/7 channel and notes it'll be available with some upcoming VIZEO Smart TVs. He also noted that they're working with OWE and they will be airing OWE events in early April, possibly on a daily basis.

"We'll be announcing that we're doing a CZW Saturday night special. We're going to be airing a live show from a location to not be disclosed," teased Weber. "It will be made up of all indie wrestlers and once we can get a group of guys to go wrestle, we think that would be a good cure for what's going on right now."

Support Michael Weber and FITE.tv by following them on Twitter @FiteTV. Weber's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.