Monday Night Ratings

[Triple B]

Establish a company?

They ARE established.  THey've been around for 10 years.  THey've been on Thursday Nights for YEARS now.  All I hear from TNA is "just wait."  I've waited 10 years for a .7 rating.  I've endured Hulk Hogan fucking up a good show for a .7 rating.  I've watched RVD get squashed for a .7 rating.  I've seen legit GREAT talent get buried now.... for a .7 rating.

Everyone said it would be a win if they just pulled in a 1.2 last week.  They couldn't get a 1, getting a .98.  They LOST almost 20% of their viewing audience from last week.  RAW wasn't UP 20%.

Good business is doing something for a gain.  They have moved to a LIVE Monday Night, Head-to-Head show.... just to get their teeth kicked in.

[Ian "Wolfie" Trumps]

Ian the company been around since 2002 ,  it takes 8 years to establish a company?   if they were like a year old or something yeah  that saying holds true... but it been 8 years and truth be told they are heading in the wrong direction

I have said this a few times already. They arent the same company. 8 years ago they were nothing more than a glorified indy federation. Now they are something different. I view TNA as a business, where all I hear from folks is the drew a 0.8. Does anyone actually know what that properly means? Or is just fancy to say well they suck because they are 21 percent down.

As a business and to put themselves in areas to get sponsors, tv time, cross ins and merchandise they have had to adapt their product. Something the so called great ECW FAILED to do and went down the shitter.

I always look at wrestling with two different hats on. The fan in me who likes it for the storylines and the other hat which understands why certain things are done for business sakes. Hate John Cena for example? Biggest fucking cash cow WWE has right now! Do you think Vince McMahon sits there and thinks 'hmmmm some nerd on a computer doesnt like cena, but 5 million kids buy his tshirt making me incredibly rich, I think I will depush him for the sake of those net nerds'

Come on guys use some sense.

[Ian "Wolfie" Trumps]

Establish a company?

They ARE established.  THey've been around for 10 years.  THey've been on Thursday Nights for YEARS now.  All I hear from TNA is "just wait."  I've waited 10 years for a .7 rating.  I've endured Hulk Hogan fucking up a good show for a .7 rating.  I've watched RVD get squashed for a .7 rating.  I've seen legit GREAT talent get buried now.... for a .7 rating.

Everyone said it would be a win if they just pulled in a 1.2 last week.  They couldn't get a 1, getting a .98.  They LOST almost 20% of their viewing audience from last week.  RAW wasn't UP 20%.

Good business is doing something for a gain.  They have moved to a LIVE Monday Night, Head-to-Head show.... just to get their teeth kicked in.

I am just utterly surprised by this statement. I am starting to wonder if your watching the shows mate or just utterly determined to prove Hulk Hogan is whatever at all costs. I couldnt give a shit if they do a 0.8 rating or a 0.6 rating. Bearing in mind they have adapted their show for mainstream American wrestling, I think the proof in the pudding will be their turnover in 2010 vs 2009 and if the post their profiuts/losses as a comparison over ths two year period.

[Triple B]

The thing is....

The are spending MORE money for LESS production.

Spending MORE....

For less ratings....

Where is that good business sense?  All it's going to take is Spike to freak out after a month of this and yank them, forever hurting their product, and giving Vince even MORE bragging rights.  Or worse... they eventually just get cancelled.

I think you should go back and read my REAL long post about this.  The financial numbers don't add up.

[Ian "Wolfie" Trumps]

The thing is....

The are spending MORE money for LESS production.

Spending MORE....

For less ratings....

Where is that good business sense?  All it's going to take is Spike to freak out after a month of this and yank them, forever hurting their product, and giving Vince even MORE bragging rights.  Or worse... they eventually just get cancelled.

I think you should go back and read my REAL long post about this.  The financial numbers don't add up.

So Spike TV put their fingers in the air and looked at no financial information nor business plan for 2010 before moving them to Monday nights. Come on B. Neither you nor me runs a TV station. There was a reason for this and it wasnt just because of Hulk Hogan that the move was done. It was done because of something. Like I said, ratings mean jack shit in the grand scheme of things to quote Shawn Michaels when the ratings war between Nitro and Raw kicked off 'Nobody had cared about ratings until then'. Its about how much money they make. Vince was doing what a 8.0 10 years back and is barely managing a 3.5 now...so if these ratings mean a shit load, WWE should be half dead by now.

[Triple B]

No.  It's a money thing.  WWE gets a piece of the advertising, so they GET something for the ratings.

TNA gets nothing.  SO... maybe they shouldn't be concerned with the ratings.  But... if they aren't going to attracted advertisers for Spike, who's to say they aren't going to just move out TNA and put in more UFC stuff?  They have to make money for Spike.  They won't do that with those ratings.  The difference between WCW and TNA is that WCW had a very large financial backer that had money to burn in Turner.  TNA doesn't have that luxury.  The owner of TNA doesn't also own the network. 

[Sally Screw]

I think a key element everyone is forgetting is the networks themselves in all of this. WWE is on USA network which is more family friendly. It's target audiences are from 12-54 and consists of a large section of viewing tastes from family shows, movies and such. So as a result any advertising for RAW will reach a larger more diverse audience. Meanwhile over on Spike, which has shows such as UFC fighting, 1,000 ways to die and MAN swers, you have the limited 18-34 audience. No wonder they only get 1.0 on average. The best shows on Spike like Ultimate heavyweight:The Finale only scored 2.4 for the entire show... that's well below an average RAW of 3.5 Seems audiences in general are not exactly falling over themselves to watch Spike TV.

So while everyone debates the show's contents, maybe that's not the trouble at all... maybe it's the network you place your product on.

[Jose The Law Ramon]

Thank you Sally. In fact, you reminded me of another thing - anyone remember when this was the same Nashville Network that became Spike BECAUSE they brought in WWF/E's Raw? In fact, I ask you to find any programming of Spike's - ANY - that had higher ratings than what WWE brought in at the time they were on Spike. In generally Spike just doesn't know how to advertise their programming. What makes it worse is that I can't think of but one or two people who sponsors TNA. How many of us could name (without searching on the Internet) 5 people who sponsor TNA? And how many TNA guys have been put on the commercials of those products? I just don't think TNA's gotten the proper exposure to the rest of the world like WWE has to get it the same kind of ratings increase.

[Triple B]

OK... I'll give you that perhaps TNA not INCREASING in ratings is possible because Spike hasn't put enough commercials up.

Even though TNA plastered ads for going to Monday Nights everywhere... billboards in Time Square, Radio Shows, TV Shows... everywhere.  The WWE PPV before this even had a commercial for TNA at the end.

But... that isn't the case.  It isn't like the TNA viewing audience stayed the same.

They lost 20%.  Now what happens if they lost 20% of their PPV buys?  Now they get what.... 22-25k buys? 

Look at the ratings.  People tuned in last week, and left as the show went on to go watch RAW.

This week, those same people who either tuned in for the first time to watch Hogan on TNA didn't like it and didn't even watch, or just went back to watching RAW.  And AGAIN as the show goes  on.... they continue to turn it off.  People watched last week because of the hype.  They didn't watch this week because last week was bad.  This week wasn't any better of a show.

If this continues into next week.... They'd be stupid to not make some major changes.  Personally, I think my booking of those people wasn't too bad.

[jagilki]

For me it was simple this week.

Pre-Recorded Impact for which I ALREADY read the Spoilers a week before it aired.

Or

Live Raw with Stone Cold maybe doing something memorable (which he didn't)

[Bryan Payne]

I think this is more why TNA ratings went down this week then anything else. Unless TNA where debuting The Rock, I don't think TNA stood a chance of maintaining their ratings.

Wait wasn't this the whole reason of bringing in all those big names?  To blunt the impact of WWE's exposure and head start in fan base?  So you're telling me that two of their hottest commodities AJ Styles and Jeff "The Smoke" Hardy can't compete with a guy who's been retired for almost a decade? (a guy who frankly made me turn the channel DURING the Attitude Era... sorry Stone Cold Fans, the beer toss, and the 'what' got fucking old like Rock's ass jokes)  Yeah.  That's a bad thing anyway you slice it.   Doesn't mean it's a fatal thing mind you, but it should be something somebody with TNA is concerned about and has a plan to fix or it might possibly become a fatal issue for them becoming more than 'that other wrestling show.'

[Triple B]

If that was the case, RAW would have been up a comparable number to what TNA was down.  That wasn't the case.

TNA had the lowest ratings they've had since 2006.

[Triple B]

I have a small piece of information that I feel I need to back off slightly on my critical nature here.  Ian is correct in that business wise... this probably won't kill off TNA.

TNA gets no revenue from ads, and the bulk of it's money comes from rights fees and international selling of their product.  So... they make more money on showing this stuff overseas.  It's evident that by the WWE increasing their Interntional revnue from 9 million to 127 million in the last year, that this is a market that can be expanded in.  So... while it IS possible that TNA may never... ever beat RAW in the ratings war.... they can survive here.

TNA has a 3 year contract with Spike.... so they won't be losing a TV deal in the next 3 years with Spike.  Unless Spike goes bankrupt or shuts down, TNA will have a home unless there is major legal issues going on.

Additionally..... TNA, even with the lower rating, still rates high for a cable broadcast. 

I still contend that TNA is doing some horrible things booking wise that are going to bite them in the ass down the line, and that they need to fix those problems if they are going to INCREASE the revenue stream from PPVs, which they don't right now.  For your enjoyment however, here's the trend of ratings for all the wrestling shows over the last year or so.