News TNA Impact Wrestling Officially Moving To Wednesdays

[Prince Bálor]

TNA Wrestling sent out the following press release, confirming the rumors that they'll be moving to Wednesday nights on Destination America. The move will take effect on June 3rd.

IMPACT WRESTLING MOVING TO WEDNESDAY NIGHTS AT 9/8C ON DESTINATION AMERICA BEGINNING WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3
Destination America's IMPACT WRESTLING, will make a permanent move to Wednesday nights at 9/8c beginning Wednesday, June 3rd. The mid-week knockout premiere will kick off with stellar matches showcasing America's favorite wrestlers.

The tag teams will head to epic battles with The Wolves and the Dirty Heels competing in match three of the Best of 5 Series on their quest to capture the vacated TNA Tag Team Titles, and The Rising and the BDC are at war battling it out in a six-man tag team matchup. TNA World Champion Kurt Angle will compete in the main event and the Knockouts will be in action featuring the Dollhouse and Brooke.

Tonight, IMPACT WRESTLING continues its premieres with Hardcore War at 9/8c on Destination America.

While Kurt Angle defeated Eric Young to retain the TNA World Title last week, the feud continues as Young and Angle form teams to compete in a 10-man tag match where each participatant can bring a weapon of choice to the ring. Austin Aries and Bobby Roode, the Dirty Heels, will face The Wolves, with a returning Eddie Edwards, in the first of a Best of 5 Series for the TNA Tag Team Titles. The Dollhouse, Marti Bell and Jade, take on Brooke and Rebel in tag team Knockouts action. Ethan Carter III also continues his "EC3 for Champ" campaign and the BroMans return to find out what the future has in store for Jessie, Robbie E and DJ Z.

IMPACT WRESTLING premieres Hardcore War tonight at 9/8c with the permanent switch to Wednesday nights starting June 3rd only on Destination America !

TNA had previously aired on Wednesdays during their run with Spike TV, before moving to Friday after signing on with Destination America.

Source

 

[Leo C]

Not that great to keep switching time slots. At least Wed is a better day than Friday, I assume?

 

[Bort]

 

[Bort]

 

[CM Punk]

Shocker. What is this, like the 8th time slot move since 2010?

 

[Stopspot]

For those that aren't that TV savvy: When a show gets moved around in the time slots it generally means that it doesn't draw as well as the network wants and they are trying to find a way to make it do just that.

 

[Rogue]

For those that aren't that TV savvy: When a show gets moved around in the time slots it generally means that it doesn't draw as well as the network wants and they are trying to find a way to make it do just that.

So put it on a day where two other wrestling programs air? Smart move.

 

[Leo C]

For those that aren't that TV savvy: When a show gets moved around in the time slots it generally means that it doesn't draw as well as the network wants and they are trying to find a way to make it do just that.

I thought Impact was above the DA average rating.

 

[CFCrusader]

They moved it from a shit day to Wednesdays, apparently an hour after Lucha Underground is on.

 

[Stopspot]

I thought Impact was above the DA average rating.

They've still been on a constant decline since debuting. DA expected TNA's 1.3 million fans or whatever they had on spike to follow. Obviously they did not since Impact barely broke 400k viewers with the east and west coast showings combined recently.

And ratings are only part of the problem. Advertising value is the other. RAW might not have the best ratings compared to it's glory days either, but advertising time during RAW is still worth a lot of money. I do not think it is the same to advertise during impact.

 

[Leo C]

They've still been on a constant decline since debuting. DA expected TNA's 1.3 million fans or whatever they had on spike to follow. Obviously they did not since Impact barely broke 400k viewers with the east and west coast showings combined recently.

And ratings are only part of the problem. Advertising value is the other. RAW might not have the best ratings compared to it's glory days either, but advertising time during RAW is still worth a lot of money. I do not think it is the same to advertise during impact.

Makes sense, I guess.

 

[Stopspot]

Another factor worth thinking about (if we want to go that far) is the relationship between the people in charge of TNA and the people in charge of DA.
WCW was still drawing about 2.3 million viewers when they got canceled, and part of that was because the power people in WCW didn't get on with the network.

 

[Farooq]

Friday is a horrible night for wrestling anyhow. Most people are out on Friday nights. Though not sure how good Wednesday will be for them.

 

[Testify]

Loved last year when Impact was on Wednesdays and really thought it was cool. Friday nights are just awful and to watch a wrestling show on Friday night? No thanks.

Hopefully this improves their ratings a bitč

Wednesdays - Lucha at 8pm, Impact at 9pm. Now that's awesome.

 

[Snowman1]

They've still been on a constant decline since debuting. DA expected TNA's 1.3 million fans or whatever they had on spike to follow. Obviously they did not since Impact barely broke 400k viewers with the east and west coast showings combined recently.

And ratings are only part of the problem. Advertising value is the other. RAW might not have the best ratings compared to it's glory days either, but advertising time during RAW is still worth a lot of money. I do not think it is the same to advertise during impact.

Again: What did they expect?

I can see a channel with the same reach as Spike expecting the same 1.1 million viewers, but this Discovery America channel nobody's ever heard of? It's really a surprise that they are able to draw what they are. Did they really expect people to buy extra cable packages to watch Impact? Lol, no. WatchWrestling. And fans, especially now, can live without Impact.

Not to mention the common theme of clueless TV execs thinking they know wrestling when they don't (again, TV execs aren't the problem, ask Lucha Underground, it's stupid people). Wasn't it the Network's call to put the belt on Kurt Angle? Fail.

Suppose the reasoning behind bringing Impact in has been to bring in the southern demo to watch Impact, then check out their other LQ programming. I'm sure that hasn't been the case either.

As for the ad revenue? Again, what did they expect? That's a big part of why other stations didn't want them in. Even though Impact draws 1.1 million viewers, there wasn't any growth, and the core wrestling fans that do watch Impact are well-known to not spend much money. Shoot you're drawing from a demographic that - when they were looking for a TV deal - wouldn't spend 10 bucks a month on WWE PPV's, and they have lots of kids/parents watching.