TNA News: TNA Impact Wrestling Moving To Wednesday Nights This Summer
TNA’s Impact Wrestling program may be set to make yet another move this summer. TNA has been going through a ton in the last year. They have switched days, times, and now moved networks from Spike TV to Destination America. It has been like one big hot-flash for TNA, which many fans can sympathize with. Now TNA could yet again be making another move, this time for an understandable reason.
According to PWInsider, TNA may be moving to Wednesday nights as soon as next month. There was said to be talk at the TNA offices in Nashville about the move recently.
The idea is that Destination America doesn’t know how well TNA’s ratings will hold on Friday nights with summer coming up, so they plan to move the show to make sure numbers don’t dip. This is said to be a permanent move, not one made just for the summer. TNA is set to move to Wednesday nights around 9/8c as soon as the middle of June.
It makes total sense for TNA to move due to fear of bad numbers, as their ratings are already disappointing domestically. While TNA does still draw a notable number in the UK, it is not enough. TNA needs higher numbers in America, or Destination America may cut costs with TNA once their contract with them is up. It seems that it is not Discovery Communications that is the problem with TNA, as they are promoting the show like crazy. It is a mix of a lot of things really.
TNA President Dixie Carter recently told TNA talent to not worry about the low ratings as DVR numbers aren’t included in reports. She is right, as DVR numbers have never been counted when they should have some say in ratings. However, they cannot fully help a rating number as people could watch a show on delay months later if they chose to.
So despite the fact that the DVR numbers may show a better number for TNA, they do not count for ratings. So TNA talent should worry about the number. The problem for TNA is two fold. They are on a channel people have to upgrade their cable/satellite packages to get, The other problem is that they are rarely live and spoilers end up killing them in the end. It is the same problem for WWE SmackDown, although they do bring in a couple million people per show despite this.
TNA is not completely at fault for those problems. Live television costs more and if Discovery isn’t willing to help, they’ll have to continue to tape shows. Destination America cannot suddenly be on lower packages over night either, and TNA has no control on that regardless. Discovery doesn’t either really. So the problems TNA faces aren’t all on them, but in the end they are happening. So it is still not a good thing. Maybe the move to Wednesday might bring some higher ratings.
[IMG Credit: TNAInsider.com]
