TNA rating up from last week

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

By Alex Marvez

Email: [email protected].

 

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling appears to have found a solid niche on Spike TV. Ratings for last Saturday night’s Impact telecast rose by five percent from its Oct. 1 debut to a .82, which translates to 740,000 households and 994,000 viewers. The viewership also rose significantly in the male 18 to 49 demographics that is Spike’s target audience.

[TNABaddboi 0]

The fact that the ratings held steady is great news for TNA. I'd expected they drop off to about a .5. I guess that a testament to the fact that the first show was well received and that they delivered the Duds in ring debut (which is probably as big a TV draw as they could deliver right now without a hotshot title change). It'll be interesting to see A) how the replay did this week and B) how next week does with the X-Division positioned as the draw for the first time. They are promoting Daniels' Gauntlet as the ME, so methinks this will be the first litmus test for the X-D. Either way, a second straight .8 is great news for TNA.

[Placebo Effect 0]

Awesome.

[TNABaddboi 0]

Here's more info, from PWI:

 

The second edition of TNA's Impact on Spike TV rose 5% in the ratings to a.82, with 740,000 households tuning into the show. The major success was a rise in the male demographics. In Males 18-49, the show scored a .9 with 455,000 households, a 21% increase from their debut week. In Males 18-34, they scored a .9 with 225,000 households, a 23% increase from last week.

 

In the Males 18-34 demographic, TNA's quarter hour ratings grew from 11:15 through the end of the show, peaking with a .9 rating from 11:45 PM to Midnight for Team 3-D vs. America's Most Wanted, so there were fans who tuned in and stayed with the show upon recognizing the former Dudley Boyz.

 

In comparing the ratings with WWE Velocity a month ago, TNA's rating was 48% higher, while they scored 69% stronger in Males 18-49, and 61% stronger in Males 18-34.

[jesse_ewiak 0]

Wait, I thought MikeinSC said it was going to be a horrible failure?

[eirejmcmahon 0]

Not really enjoying the shows but that's good news for them, like TNABaddboi I thought they'd fall down around the .5 mark.

[Guest *KNK*]

It's safe to say the Deadly Boys and Jarrett's "negative" presence doesn't exist in the minds of the viewers.

[eirejmcmahon 0]

I hope someone at Spike is faxing Vince these figures with a comparison to Velocity's weaker numbers.

[Guest MikeSC]

Wait, I thought MikeinSC said it was going to be a horrible failure?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And you can point to me saying that, right?

 

No?

 

Thought not.

 

F*** off.

[Guest *KNK*]

I hope someone at Spike is faxing Vince these figures with a comparison to Velocity's weaker numbers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Vince would argue "That's because our biggest stars weren't on that show. That was our hour of programming to expose our younger up and coming superstars. The other promotion needs to stick high wire acts and cram former wwe superstars into their block of television to have any success. This hardly indicates any legitimate claim of being competition."

[eirejmcmahon 0]

"They've a 1/4 of your audience and they've been on television for all of five minutes, old man"

 

There's no way that shit on Raw did well last night.

[Guest MikeSC]

I hope someone at Spike is faxing Vince these figures with a comparison to Velocity's weaker numbers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Vince would argue "That's because our biggest stars weren't on that show. That was our hour of programming to expose our younger up and coming superstars. The other promotion needs to stick high wire acts and cram former wwe superstars into their block of television to have any success. This hardly indicates any legitimate claim of being competition."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I doubt Vince was fully aware Velocity was even on the air.

[Carnival 0]

To Mike's credit, if he did imply he thought it was going to fail, it's only been 2 weeks. You can't exaclty shove anything in his face yet, if he indeed did say something like that.

 

I'm really not enjoying the shows that much, but I'm hoping they will get better. maybe somewhere down the line they will get a 2 hour program so they don't have to waste a very valuable segment on their 1 hour show with the likes of Shelly or Shane or Hoyt or other not so well known guys. It would give them more time to showcase the midcard, they desperately need that.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

I'm pretty surprised it went up. That's great news for them.

 

I thought it would fall too.

[Dangerous A 0]

This is good. I too expected a dropoff of around .2 or more.

 

They are not out of the woods by any stretch and the key will be maintaining and building on this audience in the coming months. The growing number should be encouraging and should boost morale in the lockerroom right before BFG.

 

With WWE doing things like putting Stephanie back on TV as a regular, TNA should really focus on the in ring action and trying to really set themselves apart as a real alternative. It's not hard. Just don't do what the 'E' is doing creatively.

 

Now if we can only get Samoa Joe on the tube...

[2GOLD 0]

This is good. I too expected a dropoff of around .2 or more.

 

They are not out of the woods by any stretch and the key will be maintaining and building on this audience in the coming months. The growing number should be encouraging and should boost morale in the lockerroom right before BFG.

 

With WWE doing things like putting Stephanie back on TV as a regular, TNA should really focus on the in ring action and trying to really set themselves apart as a real alternative. It's not hard. Just don't do what the 'E' is doing creatively.

 

Now if we can only get Samoa Joe on the tube...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Agreed, we need Joe kicking someone in the head and then about breaking them into 30 pieces with that back move of his. The guy is awesome.

[Guest Rubin]

Funny to see that star power has been the biggest rating mover like the Jarrett/Nash segment last week and the former Dudleys this week, rather than their "real" wrestling action.

[Carnival 0]

IMO, they should get people watching with the Star Power and keep them watching with the in ring action. That appears to be what they are doing so far. It's a good formula, it worked for WCW. WCW just didn't know how to get past that phase and make new stars.

[KingPK 0]

I still think that when Ultimate Fighter II wraps up next month, Spike will strongly consider giving Impact a trial-run at two hours for a month or so. Thing is, I don't know how TNA will handle the taping schedule since they certainly won't tape 8 hours of TV in one night.

[Dangerous A 0]

True, KingPK.

 

I'd think perhaps they would go to once a week tapings or tape a show one day and then tape again the very next day for the next week.

 

So it would go taping 1 to air that week, taping 2-the next day, to air the next week so there is still that long stretch to edit things as well as give guys that time off to recover and/or work ROH/Indy shots.

 

I'm sure it's workable.

[Downhome 0]

I wish there was a way to know how many TNA viewers are not current WWE viewers.

[Guest Fook_Theta]

I wish there was a way to know how many TNA viewers are not current WWE viewers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would be quite surprised if there was over say 10,000(and that's a stretch) TNA watchers that don't also watch WWE. Ofcourse we should see if/when Spike runs TNA Impact against Raw or Smackdown, which I hope won't be too far off in timeframe.

 

I mean I could imagine some people being hardcore WCW fans that just completely stopped watching when WCW went out off the tv but nothing amounting to the 500,000-million households that watched Impact.

[Carnival 0]

I mean I could imagine some people being hardcore WCW fans that just completely stopped watching when WCW went out off the tv.....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I know people like that.

[Placebo Effect 0]

I mean I could imagine some people being hardcore WCW fans that just completely stopped watching when WCW went out off the tv.....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I know people like that.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's been me, just I've kept up on things because of places like this site.

[Downhome 0]

My cousin stopped watching WWE two years ago and I believe he watches Impact now. I'm shere there are more people out there like that than we'd imagine.

[Dangerous A 0]

I mean I could imagine some people being hardcore WCW fans that just completely stopped watching when WCW went out off the tv but nothing amounting to the 500,000-million households that watched Impact.

 

 

This is correct. Most of those people are in the Southeast U.S. (not all, but a large number) Didn't matter how bad WCW was, they still watched and when they went under, they stopped watching wrestling because Vince's brand of wrestling just wasn't for them. That is one of the audiences that TNA should really be trying to attain and I think they are getting there somewhat. TNA needs that audience if it is to someday do shows from anyplace other than Universal Studios and also to turn a profit. They need to not worry about WWE and concentrate on establishing an audience to the point of being able to make some money.

 

Baby steps, TNA. Baby steps.

[Guest JMA]

Kudos to TNA. I especially like the fact that a TAG TEAM main event drew a higher number than last week. They could probably get an even higher rating if they reunite Kip and BG James.

[Astro7x 0]

How does this compare to ECW on TNN's rating?

[Hektik 0]

ECW averaged a 0.9 on TNN.

[Astro101 0]

Great news. It means that more people heard about the show and watched it...so far the first test of keeping their audience and building has been passed for the first two weeks.