OAO Primetime Debut Thread

[Hawk 34 0]

Back to the drawing board.

 

Jarrett: Obviously, they need me back in the main event guys.

[GODSON 0]

The drawing board:

 

The World Champion Sting, he is a legend but his dvd flop. He only wrestle once a month and that's including house shows.$500,000

 

X division- Styles always have the best match on the ppv, Samoa Joe is the biggest thing since slice bread and Homicide is the reason why LAX click in the ring.Plus, every X division related dvd makes the top 10 including the new one.

 

TNA should just make the whole company into a X division company.

[geniusMoment 0]

A 1.0 is pretty much what I expected. Lets see if they can keep it above 1.0 from now on, and start to make it grow.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Keeping in mind that most casual fans don't know that TNA is even on TV. So they really lack that chance to make NEW fans out of people that may not have watched wrestling before. Sure some people might latch on but not like the WWE where they have been a staple on TV for so long.

 

Pretty good show.

[Guest Hotbutter Spoontoaster]

Rating for TNA Impact special was a 1.0.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Could this even be seen as a positive for TNA?

[Art Sandusky 0]

I'd be curious as to what the breakdown was.

[geniusMoment 0]

Could this even be seen as a positive for TNA?

They were only hoping for a 1.1-1.2 so it's a minor negative. But it's not horrible or anything.

[eirejmcmahon 0]

All concerned will have to be disappointed with that rating, any suggestion othewise is hard to take seriously - prime time slot, PPV quality card, decent advertising - and they can't even match their best rating from the old slot ?

 

On the plus side, word-of-mouth on the show itself was good so maybe they have something they can build on.

[The Decemberists 0]

Well... It's more than they had been recently getting at 11pm I guess.

 

But as long as the 1.0 doesn't start going down then it's a reasonable number to build on and the more it's on at 9pm then the more word can spread and more will hopefully start watching. Of course if they aren't able to keep up a good of good/decent shows then it'll all be for nothing. And they have to keep up the advertising they've been doing this last week. They can't just now go back to what they were doing before if they want to grow, they need to keep buying local ads during Raw etc etc, not just stop now the prime time debut's out the way.

[Guest Canadian Crippler64]

I agree that it is dissapointing, but the thoughts that they were expecting a 1.5 were unreasonable.

 

I think TNA was likely hoping to see a 1.2 since there best rating to date was a 1.1 for Sting's debut.

 

Also, I think there are two positives to take from this...

 

First, as someone else just said, the feedback from the show has been immensely positive, so hopefully that will lead to a high retention of those viewers, and perhaps even a little growth for next week.

 

Also, anyone who has studied the wrestling business will know that while TV is EXTREMELY important, the bulk of the company's money is made through PPV buys and house show revenues.

 

That being said, I have been a loyal viewer of TNA since it's debut on Spike, and even followed it before that, but I don't get FSN in Canada, and this will be the 1st PPV I will buy because I think TNA has earned my money, and the card looks like a can't miss PPV.

 

I am psyched to see Joe/Angle, and the Daniels/Sabin and Cage/Styles matches could steal the show. Overall if this special leads to a pop in the Genesis buy rate, then there is some good to be taken from it. If there are other TNA fans out there that will be first time PPV buyers like I am this time, then hopefully TNA can grab their best buy rate ever for Genesis.

[TNABaddboi 0]

Overall if this special leads to a pop in the Genesis buy rate, then there is some good to be taken from it. If there are other TNA fans out there that will be first time PPV buyers like I am this time, then hopefully TNA can grab their best buy rate ever for Genesis.

 

That's a good point. IIRC, Meltz said they did between 40K-50K for Bound for Glory, which would make it their highest buyrate ever. If they can do that for Sting and Jarrett, you gotta think they'll be able to top it for Angle/Joe. And if they do, they can rightfully claim at least a little momentum. I know they wanted to pop a big rating to impress Spike enough to get 2 hours permenantely, but Spike keeps all the ad money, so PPV buyrates are more important to TNA's bottom line. While they need to continue working to increase viewership, they also need to convince more of the million or so viewers they get every week no matter where they air to buy the PPVs.

[razazteca 0]

The drawing board:

 

The World Champion Sting, he is a legend but his dvd flop. He only wrestle once a month and that's including house shows.$500,000

 

X division- Styles always have the best match on the ppv, Samoa Joe is the biggest thing since slice bread and Homicide is the reason why LAX click in the ring.Plus, every X division related dvd makes the top 10 including the new one.

 

TNA should just make the whole company into a X division company.

Make Konnan the head booker and turn the company into Extreme Lucha Libre with nothing but stable 4 vs 4 or 3 vs 3 tag matches with some comedy thrown in. Who needs 20 minute promos when you can have Eric Young run around the ring like a bushwacker or Sharkboy chase people trying to bite them or have Norman Smiley do the big wiggle? I want to see Papparazzi vs The new new new Raven Flock Movement, The WWE H8ers vs The Good Ole Country Boys, Division X Top Team vs LAX, have a few gimmick cage, dog collar, and hair matches every couple of months....

 

BAM! THE PERFECT ALTERNATIVE WRESTLING FED!

[Red Baron 0]

Why Thursday nights at nine. It's a horrible timeslot because of whats on at nine on the other stations.

[luke-o 0]

Just out of curiosity, what was the Blade series pulling in the ratings? If TNA's doing better than that, at least its a step in the right direction.

[tommytomlin 0]

Blade drew 2.5 million for it's premiere, but was down to below 1 million when it was cancelled. I'm pretty sure even a 1.04 for TNA means 1 million+ viewers, so yeah, make of that what you will.

[GODSON 0]

Why Thursday nights at nine. It's a horrible timeslot because of whats on at nine on the other stations.

 

I don't remember Smackdown or Thunder being heavily affected by Thursday nights especially when Friends,Survivor,etc. was on during their peak. Besides that hospital show on ABC, nothing on Thursday nights at 9 is on Friends or early Survivor level.

 

Just out of curiosity, what was the Blade series pulling in the ratings? If TNA's doing better than that, at least its a step in the right direction.

 

You can't compare TNA ratings to any tv show. In it's genre, TNA is at the bottom. That's what people in the office is looking at. Anything wrestling,fighting or sports related.

[Guest Hotbutter Spoontoaster]

nothing on Thursday nights at 9 is on Friends or early Survivor level.

November 30th: Scrubs - Season 6.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

Kazarian really sounded like Raven when the Movement interrupted Eric Young. Sort of looked like him too. That was creepy. Bentley looked like he got gangbanged by Jeff Hardy, Shannon Moore, and the Bratz girls, however.

[KingPK 0]

I kind of watched bits and pieces on Thursday, but I saw the replay in full earlier tonight. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to really get me back into TNA and everything that bugged me about the presentation is still a problem. For example, I still hate the crowd. The chants sound rehearsed and like someone is holding up a big cue-card for them and I really am sick of seeing that douche with the towel twirling in every fucking shot.

 

Another problem is that they STILL cut to a commercial a few minutes into a match, thus killing any flow it can possibly have and probably making people that they want to stick around change the channel (ex: Angle/Abyss and Cage/Rhino, which was still really good). They had two hours to show a TAPED program and they couldn't have spaced the breaks out so we could actually have seen these matches almost in full?

 

Color me unsold on LAX, but that might just be because I thought the flag burning angle was dumb.

 

Don't get me started on that VKM nonsense, either.

 

TNA simply will continue to ride an escalator going nowhere until they get the fuck out of Orlando and not do tapings in front of the same group of fans every month.

[TNABaddboi 0]

Another problem is that they STILL cut to a commercial a few minutes into a match, thus killing any flow it can possibly have and probably making people that they want to stick around change the channel (ex: Angle/Abyss and Cage/Rhino, which was still really good). They had two hours to show a TAPED program and they couldn't have spaced the breaks out so we could actually have seen these matches almost in full?

 

I think Keller awhile back said that they place the commercials in the matches intentional to A) run "longer" matches than they did in the FSN days and B) to subletly say that you have to buy the PPV to see uninterrupted matches. If that's true, it's umm, interesting. Don't know how effective it is, but it was just something I came across around BFG.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

--Poll on Thursday's Impact

 

Excellent 41.3%

Good 38.5%

Average 7.3%

Fair 6.1%

Poor 6.9%

24.0% of those responding didn't see the show. All I know is I watched with a group of what I'd call casual fans, and within 15 minutes, they had lost complete interest in the show (although they did like the Angle match until Jim Mitchell spread the thumb tacks and at that point it was like a collective who cares). The response in general was the show had every reason they stopped watching WWE. There was so much bad that the only positive I could say is it was like watching a badly written and badly acted Raw, but with much better wrestling and great heat. But some of those segments were atrocious.

 

WO.com

 

I'd have to agree with that. The wrestling was good to great and the heat was always there, but some of the skits, especially the stuff with Nash, were terrible. It was the kind of stupid 'comedy' that you'd see on Raw, and the last thing TNA needs to do is anything that looks like something stolen from Raw. The formatting also needed work, because too often a match would end and before you could blink they'd be right into a bumper for a commercial. This really hurt something like The Naturals win over Team 3D, where they went over very strong, not only laying them out with their own finisher and also beating them in their own specialty match, but before you could even take it in they were off into the next commercial break. The least they could have done was have Tenay and West looking shocked and talking about how they have never seen Team 3D dominated like that. And I hated the post-main event where they kept switching from the ring to the back then back to the ring to show the two different angles. The PPV is being sold entirely on Joe vs. Angle, so they should have picked that angle and just stayed on that. Something like this makes me wonder why TNA still don't go to a split screen. That is something they really need to start doing.

 

All in all, the prime time special was classic TNA in that the wrestling and heat was spot on, but the production and presentation had some serious flaws.

[Epic Reine 0]

Was Nash's ass really necessary?

[Hawk 34 0]

It really shows how poor a wrestling promotion is doing when Kevin Nash exposes his ass in the nameof comedy and it's at the bottom of the pile of issues they have.

[TNABaddboi 0]

More ratings stuff, from the Torch:

 

TNA Impact drew a 1.02 rating last Thursday night for its prime time debut and two hour special. The first hour drew a 1.01 rating and the second drew a 1.04 rating.

 

The peak quarter hour rating was a 1.11 for Kurt Angle vs. Abyss, less than 0.2 higher than the opening quarter hour rating of 0.92, with relatively little volatility throughout the show. So viewers generally tuned in at the start and watched throughout.

 

TNA Impact outdrew TNT's Chicago Bulls vs. Houston Rockets broadcast among men 18-49 and outrated the Sacramento Kings vs. Golden State Warriors among both men 18-49 and men 18-34.

 

Impact averaged 1.2 million viewers with a 1.09 among men 18-49 and a 1.00 among men 18-34.

[TNABaddboi 0]

Even more, from Mike Johnson:

 

SpikeTV was thrilled with the rating for the two hour TNA Impact primetime debut episode. Internally, TNA was disappointed hoping for a bigger splash but also realize that for a company under five years old (and having moved timeslots several times), they are in a good position. Expect the Spike-TNA synergy to continue to grow in coming months.

[luke-o 0]

You can't compare TNA ratings to any tv show. In it's genre, TNA is at the bottom. That's what people in the office is looking at. Anything wrestling,fighting or sports related.

 

I was only going to say that if they could draw the same sort of audience that an established charcter could then that would be a good step. But it didnt, so my point is invalid.

[eirejmcmahon 0]

I'm genuienly surprised to hear that Spike were 'thrilled' with a 1.0 for the big debut show, it's good news for TNA though as Spike clearly have low/realistic (delete where appropriate) expectations.