Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program guide, an automated telephone system, or through a live customer service representative.
There has been an increasing number of pay-per-views distributed via streaming video online, either alongside or in lieu of carriage through television providers.
[1] Events distributed through PPV typically include boxing, mixed martial arts, professional wrestling, and concerts.
In the past, PPV was often used to distribute telecasts of feature films, as well as adult content such as pornographic films, but the growth of digital cable and streaming media caused these uses to be subsumed by video on demand systems (which allow viewers to purchase and view pre-recorded content at any time) instead, leaving PPV to focus primarily on live event programs and combat sports.
The earliest form of pay-per-view was closed-circuit television, also known as theatre television, where professional boxing telecasts were broadcast live to a select number of venues (mostly theaters, with arenas, stadiums, convention centers, and schools being less common venues), where viewers paid for tickets to watch the fight live.
[7] Telemeter, an experimental coin-operated pay-per-view service, had a trial run in Los Angeles in 1952 and Palm Springs, California from 1953 to 1954, featuring first-run movies and live sporting events, until a lawsuit from a local drive-in and other issues forced it to shut down.
The service then set up an experimental run in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, Canada in 1959, free from American antitrust laws and outside of the FCC's juridiction.
These early systems quickly went out of business, as the cable industry adopted satellite technology and as flat-rate pay television services such as Home Box Office (HBO) became popular.
[15] Professional boxing was largely introduced to pay-per-view cable television with the "Thrilla in Manila" fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in September 1975.
[16] There was also another major title fight aired on pay-per-view in 1980, when Roberto Durán defeated Sugar Ray Leonard.
[17][18] WWE chairman and chief executive officer Vince McMahon is considered by many as one of the icons of pay-per-view promotion.
In May 2007, the junior middleweight boxing match between Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. on HBO PPV became the biggest-selling non-heavyweight title fight, with a little more than 2.5 million buyers.
[22] The fight itself generated roughly $139 million in domestic PPV revenue, making it the most lucrative prizefight of that era.
[23] The leading PPV attraction, Floyd Mayweather Jr. has generated approximately 24 million buys and $1.6 billion in revenue.
But if HBO stopped doing pay-per-view, the promoters would simply do it on their own [like Bob Arum did with Cotto-Malignaggi in June 2006] or find someone else who will do it for them.
"[28] The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a mixed martial arts promotion, was a relative newcomer to the PPV market.
[32] In March 2019, as part of a larger contract with ESPN for media rights in the United States, it was announced that future UFC pay-per-views will only be sold to subscribers of the network's streaming service ESPN+.
Although it still offers its events via traditional PPV outlets, they have also been included at no additional charge as part of a larger, subscription-based streaming service known as WWE Network.
In 2015, PPV broadcasts of the Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead tour set a record for buys for a music event, with over 400,000.
Broadcasters (most notably PremPlus) have abandoned their aspirations to introduce PPV into other sports markets following poor interest from the public.
However, the matches proved unpopular, with team supporters' groups urging fans to make donations to charity instead, and the Premier League announcing that it would allocate the extra matches among its existing rightsholders (TNT and Sky, as well as Amazon Prime Video and BBC Sport, with some on free-to-air TV) through at least the end of 2020, as it had done during the conclusion of the previous season.
Western International Communications operated a separate service in the west initially known as Home Theatre; it was later rebranded as Viewers Choice under license.
Viewers Choice Canada was a partner in a French-language PPV service known as Canal Indigo, which is now entirely owned by Videotron.
In November 2008, pay-per-view made its debut in Albania through Digitalb on terrestrial and satellite television, with the channel DigiGold.
In other sports are broadcast live on NBB TV (Exclusive channel of Brazilian Basketball League in Premium system).
Sports Field S.A. has exclusive rights to games on the Chilean professional basketball league, which are broadcast live vía CDO (Premium Signal).
[265] The first pay-per-view mixed martial arts bout was Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki, which took place in Japan on June 26, 1976.
WrestleMania I in March 1985 sold over 1 million buys on closed-circuit theatre TV in the United States, making it the largest pay-per-view showing of a wrestling event in the US at the time.
[365] The highest buy rates for professional wrestling events on pay-per-view home television as of June 2015[update] are as follows.