TNA had its biggest ratings in two months on 9/9, with the 9 p.m. Impact doing 353,000 viewers. It was the best number since the 7/8 show did 363,000 viewers and the third biggest since the 6/3 move to Wednesday. The replay did 96,000 viewers, the best since 7/8, which did 100,000, and also the third best to date.
This has to be credited to the GFW angle since the numbers have gone from 279,000 since the turn aired.
More in depth:Sports Illustrated and PW Insider reported that part of the deal regarding Jeff Jarrett returning and doing the GFW angle is that he would sell or in some form give up his minority shares in the company in exchange for his company getting plugged on television and raising its profile. Jarrett confirmed to us that the story that part of the deal that resulted in his return was a deal where he would be divesting himself of his TNA ownership is accurate. Jarrett said about it that, “I’m thrilled.” Jarrett was approached by TNA and when working things out, felt the TV exposure would help his brand, and his ownership in TNA really didn’t amount to anything since it’s not like the company is profitable. Jarrett making the deal was a strategic move that sources close to the situation believe has a good chance of paying off down the line, the key being the exposure of the GFW brand name not just in the U.S. but in international markets where he’s closer to making a deal in
Spoiler: show
When this year started, it looked like there was going to be a big battle for the No. 2 pro wrestling promotion spot in the United States.
The incumbent, TNA, was moving to a much smaller station, and there was some question whether ROH, already doing better when it came to house shows and PPV, would surpass them for total weekly television viewers. But there were two other serious contenders, Lucha Underground, a new concept in pro wrestling shows had already started and had gotten rave reviews, and some knocks as well, for a very different style of show, and New Japan Pro Wrestling inked a deal with AXS TV for a weekly show that would air old matches. That was also going to be a very different product for the U.S. market.
As the fourth quarter starts, nobody really emerged as No. 2. TNA lost far more of its audience than expected, and did no domestic house shows (its first ones of 2015 come this week) and only one live PPV event, which had minimal interest.
Dixie Carter, in an interview with Sports Illustrated, said “We’re contracted to Destination America through the end of the year, and we are in discussions going on for 2016.”
The story stated Destination America would no longer carry the show in 2016. If that’s the case, that would mean Discovery and TNA made a deal, similar to what TNA did with Spike last year. Discovery made the decision to cut bait in May based on costs of the show and advertising costs, and the earliest out they had was at the end of September, which in a memo to Destination America employees, they stated was when they would cut bait.
ROH had a strong growth year, having by far its best year ever when it came to live attendance, doing sellout business in 1,000 seat buildings all over the country. When the Sinclair deal was put together, the business model was that they would be a success if they could draw 750 per show, with the idea they were doing 300 to 500 and television would be able to bring that figure up. At first, that didn’t happen. It is likely expenses are higher now, as there are wrestlers on better paid contracts, and using outside talent like A.J. Styles and The Young Bucks, not to mention the New Japan stars, isn’t cheap. Right now with ROH, there are no signs of great aggressive expansion, but it is the one promotion where attendance is up across the board.
Whether you say it’s more by default, they are the clear No. 2. Yet on Wednesday night, TNA blows them away when it comes to ratings. ROH can sell tickets because hardcore fans know they are getting great matches. But the lack of names casual fans would know, and even more, the production values of the television show, have limited any ratings growth, and ultimately, the key to the business is television. Sinclair has never been aggressive with its wrestling product, and the production values of the show are the prime example, as a company owned by a major network looking the way it does is almost baffling. Except, Sinclair clearly picked this up to be cheap original programming with the idea as a company it could be self sufficient, or close to it, running live events. They seem on a slow growth pattern, but they are also clearly not a big priority to their network, so are always in danger of the wrong executive who doesn’t like wrestling getting into power.
ROH was talking TV deals with major cable companies all year, including some talks with Spike that, if they included better production as part of the package, would have been a game changer. But they ended up with the same Destination America that TNA was on, but it was a deal for exposure as it doesn’t appear Destination America was paying anything for ROH. And they did no advertising for ROH, while continuing to advertise TNA, since they were paying for that one.
But on the same night, TNA’s viewership dwarfed that of ROH, and ROH quickly lost its 8 p.m. time slot and is now only at 11 p.m. Its contract with Destination America runs out in early December. They’ve seemingly solidified their relationship with New Japan, which is a key deal because their top talent can work with the world’s No. 2 group, and the top stars of New Japan worked more regularly for ROH, and the joint shows were huge successes.
Lucha Underground remains on hold. As each week goes by with no announcement of a new season of tapings, confidence falls. The issue is different from TNA. TNA has no TV deal and Lucha Underground can tape a new season and have the same outlets with El Rey and Unimas. But they can’t make money with that and haven’t been able to secure, whether in the U.S. or Mexico, any new television deals.
TNA still has a number of international deals, and those deals seem to insure that no matter what happens with U.S. television, TNA will be around for a while, although it may be as a skeleton-like company. It was the better production, and having names like Hulk Hogan and Kurt Angle, that helped TNA getting international deals, which have eluded Lucha Underground and ROH (which has one overseas deal). In the U.K., TNA’s strongest market, ratings have dropped greatly this year, and after this year, there will be no more Kurt Angle.
TNA has already taped episodes of Impact that would air through 9/30. If there is television on 10/7 in the U.S. or not (and Carter did say there would be in the article), even after that point, they will continue to produce weekly television for their international markets.
Given they have no new shows, the idea last week is that the new shows will consist of cutting up matches taped the first few days of the last taping and using those matches to fill up time, unless they make a last minute tapings addition in October. Those matches were originally filmed to make up future three-hour monthly specials, those monthly concept PPVs in the U.S. that nobody buys, but TNA’s international TV deals call for monthly specials.
There had been talk of late, which may be why no announcement has been made, of either trying to stay on the station at a lower price point or even doing the ROH deal where you keep the TV but don’t get any money off it. But when you already have a money-losing company whose primary source of revenue is its domestic TV deal, and then that suddenly brings in no money at all, the problem, like with Lucha Underground, becomes the economics. They’ve already got a skeleton office and have lost everyone who makes significant money when their contracts have expired.
While still not announced, there are still talks about taping television in India built around Mahabili Sheera, which would be in late November and early December. When TNA made the deal with Sony Six, which is the station they are on in India which also covers a number of other countries in that part of the world, part of the deal was to push Sheera as a big star as a top babyface. The Sony Six shows push Sheera like he’s a major babyface, although with James Storm gone, the big Sheera vs. Storm feud they would have built around may be out of the picture unless they contract Storm to come back for those tapings and Storm hasn’t signed anywhere precluding that from happening.
The deal included coming to India and taping television with Sheera as the focus. If they don’t do the tapings there this year, it will put the future of the Sony Six deal at risk. The taping was still the plan last week, but we were told that it was not a done deal, there has been no announcement in India, and none of the talent have been informed about it.
They had taped a ton of matches with no storylines on the first few days of the last taping that were originally for future monthly PPV shows. Right now the idea is to use them to fill whatever commitments they have for the next few months while they try and get a new U.S. deal.
We’re told that with the matches taped they could fill time through the India tour. Perhaps they can tape enough in India to fill time slots until the late January U.K. tour, and film there, which would take them on television through mid-March.
The company’s international deals right now are Challenge TV in the U.K. and Ireland, Sony Six in India (which also covers Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and a few other countries), DMAX in Germany and Austria, Fight Network in Canada, G+ Sports in Japan, Supersport I Africa, MCS Sports which covers France, Belgium, Monaco and Luxembourg, Esporte Interativo in Brazil, Ego Total in Israel, Orange Sport in Poland, Sport TV in Portugal, Dubai Sports Channel in UAE and Saudi Arabia, Mio Sports 1 in Singapore and CNC 3 in Trinidad & Tobago.
One issue TNA may have when it comes to a new domestic deal is its track record. Last year, they were a show doing 1.3 million viewers per week, which is a solid number, although it means less than if it was another show, because it’s wrestling and the inherent ad rate problem. Now they are doing considerably less and are on a strong downward trajectory, plus they’ve lost many of their top stars. Executives who make decisions who follow the industry closely also have a negative opinion of the company. Several months ago, one executive with a station that has a history with pro wrestling that at least in theory could have been a viable option for TNA, noted to us that with how TNA handled the May crisis, not to mention the Vince Russo situation where they kept it a secret from Spike that he was with the company (while that was not the sole reason Spike dropped them, Spike did make the call almost immediately after that came out and it did play into it), the reaction was,”Who would want to do business with these people?”
The incumbent, TNA, was moving to a much smaller station, and there was some question whether ROH, already doing better when it came to house shows and PPV, would surpass them for total weekly television viewers. But there were two other serious contenders, Lucha Underground, a new concept in pro wrestling shows had already started and had gotten rave reviews, and some knocks as well, for a very different style of show, and New Japan Pro Wrestling inked a deal with AXS TV for a weekly show that would air old matches. That was also going to be a very different product for the U.S. market.
As the fourth quarter starts, nobody really emerged as No. 2. TNA lost far more of its audience than expected, and did no domestic house shows (its first ones of 2015 come this week) and only one live PPV event, which had minimal interest.
Dixie Carter, in an interview with Sports Illustrated, said “We’re contracted to Destination America through the end of the year, and we are in discussions going on for 2016.”
The story stated Destination America would no longer carry the show in 2016. If that’s the case, that would mean Discovery and TNA made a deal, similar to what TNA did with Spike last year. Discovery made the decision to cut bait in May based on costs of the show and advertising costs, and the earliest out they had was at the end of September, which in a memo to Destination America employees, they stated was when they would cut bait.
ROH had a strong growth year, having by far its best year ever when it came to live attendance, doing sellout business in 1,000 seat buildings all over the country. When the Sinclair deal was put together, the business model was that they would be a success if they could draw 750 per show, with the idea they were doing 300 to 500 and television would be able to bring that figure up. At first, that didn’t happen. It is likely expenses are higher now, as there are wrestlers on better paid contracts, and using outside talent like A.J. Styles and The Young Bucks, not to mention the New Japan stars, isn’t cheap. Right now with ROH, there are no signs of great aggressive expansion, but it is the one promotion where attendance is up across the board.
Whether you say it’s more by default, they are the clear No. 2. Yet on Wednesday night, TNA blows them away when it comes to ratings. ROH can sell tickets because hardcore fans know they are getting great matches. But the lack of names casual fans would know, and even more, the production values of the television show, have limited any ratings growth, and ultimately, the key to the business is television. Sinclair has never been aggressive with its wrestling product, and the production values of the show are the prime example, as a company owned by a major network looking the way it does is almost baffling. Except, Sinclair clearly picked this up to be cheap original programming with the idea as a company it could be self sufficient, or close to it, running live events. They seem on a slow growth pattern, but they are also clearly not a big priority to their network, so are always in danger of the wrong executive who doesn’t like wrestling getting into power.
ROH was talking TV deals with major cable companies all year, including some talks with Spike that, if they included better production as part of the package, would have been a game changer. But they ended up with the same Destination America that TNA was on, but it was a deal for exposure as it doesn’t appear Destination America was paying anything for ROH. And they did no advertising for ROH, while continuing to advertise TNA, since they were paying for that one.
But on the same night, TNA’s viewership dwarfed that of ROH, and ROH quickly lost its 8 p.m. time slot and is now only at 11 p.m. Its contract with Destination America runs out in early December. They’ve seemingly solidified their relationship with New Japan, which is a key deal because their top talent can work with the world’s No. 2 group, and the top stars of New Japan worked more regularly for ROH, and the joint shows were huge successes.
Lucha Underground remains on hold. As each week goes by with no announcement of a new season of tapings, confidence falls. The issue is different from TNA. TNA has no TV deal and Lucha Underground can tape a new season and have the same outlets with El Rey and Unimas. But they can’t make money with that and haven’t been able to secure, whether in the U.S. or Mexico, any new television deals.
TNA still has a number of international deals, and those deals seem to insure that no matter what happens with U.S. television, TNA will be around for a while, although it may be as a skeleton-like company. It was the better production, and having names like Hulk Hogan and Kurt Angle, that helped TNA getting international deals, which have eluded Lucha Underground and ROH (which has one overseas deal). In the U.K., TNA’s strongest market, ratings have dropped greatly this year, and after this year, there will be no more Kurt Angle.
TNA has already taped episodes of Impact that would air through 9/30. If there is television on 10/7 in the U.S. or not (and Carter did say there would be in the article), even after that point, they will continue to produce weekly television for their international markets.
Given they have no new shows, the idea last week is that the new shows will consist of cutting up matches taped the first few days of the last taping and using those matches to fill up time, unless they make a last minute tapings addition in October. Those matches were originally filmed to make up future three-hour monthly specials, those monthly concept PPVs in the U.S. that nobody buys, but TNA’s international TV deals call for monthly specials.
There had been talk of late, which may be why no announcement has been made, of either trying to stay on the station at a lower price point or even doing the ROH deal where you keep the TV but don’t get any money off it. But when you already have a money-losing company whose primary source of revenue is its domestic TV deal, and then that suddenly brings in no money at all, the problem, like with Lucha Underground, becomes the economics. They’ve already got a skeleton office and have lost everyone who makes significant money when their contracts have expired.
While still not announced, there are still talks about taping television in India built around Mahabili Sheera, which would be in late November and early December. When TNA made the deal with Sony Six, which is the station they are on in India which also covers a number of other countries in that part of the world, part of the deal was to push Sheera as a big star as a top babyface. The Sony Six shows push Sheera like he’s a major babyface, although with James Storm gone, the big Sheera vs. Storm feud they would have built around may be out of the picture unless they contract Storm to come back for those tapings and Storm hasn’t signed anywhere precluding that from happening.
The deal included coming to India and taping television with Sheera as the focus. If they don’t do the tapings there this year, it will put the future of the Sony Six deal at risk. The taping was still the plan last week, but we were told that it was not a done deal, there has been no announcement in India, and none of the talent have been informed about it.
They had taped a ton of matches with no storylines on the first few days of the last taping that were originally for future monthly PPV shows. Right now the idea is to use them to fill whatever commitments they have for the next few months while they try and get a new U.S. deal.
We’re told that with the matches taped they could fill time through the India tour. Perhaps they can tape enough in India to fill time slots until the late January U.K. tour, and film there, which would take them on television through mid-March.
The company’s international deals right now are Challenge TV in the U.K. and Ireland, Sony Six in India (which also covers Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and a few other countries), DMAX in Germany and Austria, Fight Network in Canada, G+ Sports in Japan, Supersport I Africa, MCS Sports which covers France, Belgium, Monaco and Luxembourg, Esporte Interativo in Brazil, Ego Total in Israel, Orange Sport in Poland, Sport TV in Portugal, Dubai Sports Channel in UAE and Saudi Arabia, Mio Sports 1 in Singapore and CNC 3 in Trinidad & Tobago.
One issue TNA may have when it comes to a new domestic deal is its track record. Last year, they were a show doing 1.3 million viewers per week, which is a solid number, although it means less than if it was another show, because it’s wrestling and the inherent ad rate problem. Now they are doing considerably less and are on a strong downward trajectory, plus they’ve lost many of their top stars. Executives who make decisions who follow the industry closely also have a negative opinion of the company. Several months ago, one executive with a station that has a history with pro wrestling that at least in theory could have been a viable option for TNA, noted to us that with how TNA handled the May crisis, not to mention the Vince Russo situation where they kept it a secret from Spike that he was with the company (while that was not the sole reason Spike dropped them, Spike did make the call almost immediately after that came out and it did play into it), the reaction was,”Who would want to do business with these people?”
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