By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

WWE's First Quarter 2012 PPV business tells a few different stories, but they all end with the same result - revenue of $13.5 million was exactly the same as Q1-2011.

(Interestingly, excluding the timing of WrestleMania 26 in 2010, the Q1-2010 PPV revenue segment was nearly the same at $13.4 million.) The following are highlights of the current period PPV segment.

-- WWE reported official Royal Rumble PPV buys of 443,000, down slightly from 446,000 in 2011. WWE reported official Elimination Chamber PPV buys of 178,000, down more than 20,000 buys from 199,000 last year. Chamber was also down more than 100,000 buys compared to 2010.

Royal Rumble 2012 - 443,000 buys
Royal Rumble 2011 - 446,000 buys
Royal Rumble 2010 - 462,000 buys
(2012 was down 0.6% vs. 2011, down 4.1% vs. 2010)

E. Chamber 2012 - 178,000 buys
E. Chamber 2011 - 199,000 buys
E. Chamber 2010 - 285,000 buys
(2012 was down 10.5% vs. 2011, down 37.5% vs. 2010)

-- WWE reported the decline in buys for the two events was "driven by an 8.0 percent decline in international buys." WWE reported domestic buys "remain essentially unchanged," which indicates some stability after a period of regular declines domestically.

-- In the quarter, WWE recognized 64,000 buys from prior-period PPV events, compared to 45,000 from prior-period events in 2011-Q1. This led to total buys recognized of 685,000 in Q1-2012 compared to 690,000 total buys in Q1-2011 (nearly even).

-- WWE reported a 3.0 percent increase in average revenue per buy, which was offset by a "comparable decline in current year buys" (which excludes the benefit of buys recognized from prior periods identified in the item above).

For the first time in a financial report, WWE recognized the impact of HD pricing. WWE noted, "The increase in average revenue per buy was attributable to higher retail prices charged for viewing our events in high definition."

Caldwell's Analysis: To me, the key to the PPV business report is the stability of domestic PPV buys after quarter-after-quarter-after-quarter declines. The bar is very low domestically compared to when WWE was strong in PPV business, but to stop the bleeding is a good sign.

Meanwhile, the Elimination Chamber PPV continued to free-fall, which should make WWE re-examine whether a change should be made to the February PPV. It could also be explained by WWE's paying customers already planning to shell out big bucks for WrestleMania 28 on April 1, and they were going to keep their money until then.

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