3 Hour Impact Rating is in: How much did it draw?...

[DarkAngel]

My .2cents. I said before the show that if TNA hit at least a 2 then I would be ecstatic. 1.5 is a helluva job against Raw's Bret Hart/HBK/and McMahon storylines. I think everyone is missed the fact that that is ultimate WWE history going on there and no doubt that would of drawn in huge ratings.

Now, back to TNA. Whoever was upset and said Hogan couldn't draw, or the old time wrestlers couldn't draw anymore obviously ate crow. After the Hall/Waltman/Hogan/Nash segment, TNA's rating dropped significantly. Translation: Hogan and the old crew can still draw and wrestling needs them! It's no coincidence that Hart and HBK are old timers as well. 1.5 rating for TNA is outstanding and this all but signifies the state of the Monday Night Wars. With MORE big names coming in, I believe TNA will be hitting 2.0's soon, thus bringing pro wrestling back to life. The major thing though through the long run is no doubt:

CONSISTENCY.

Another thing for all these WWE fans. You must realize something. Wrestling has been on the major decline over the past decade and Vince and the WWE were laughing all the way to pay dirt. Most of the wrestling fanbase haven't watched wrestling for YEARS because of it and Vince had no competitor's OR no threat to deal with for quite some time. They were the only Wrestling Federation to consider and they were alone.

Now, as little of a promotion TNA has started out, to come to life in THIS SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME is absolutely outstanding and a major accomplishment to not only wrestling, but Vince as well. Look around over the past month leading up to this. When was the last time wrestling was this much talked about? You can't find it and this dates all the way back to wrestling peak.

Before you go shitting down TNA'S throats, realize that in this short amount of time, where TNA would be fired up to even reach NEAR a 1.0 rating, that TNA has risen up in one SOLID NIGHT of action and gained a 1.5 rating. That's humungous considering where there were a year ago, to where they are now, and wrestling fans should thank Jeff Jarret, Hogan, and Dixie Carter for pushing wrestling back on Vince. TNA is FOR REAL.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Now, back to TNA. Whoever was upset and said Hogan couldn't draw, or the old time wrestlers couldn't draw anymore obviously ate crow. After the Hall/Waltman/Hogan/Nash segment, TNA's rating dropped significantly. Translation: Hogan and the old crew can still draw and wrestling needs them! It's no coincidence that Hart and HBK are old timers as well.

Hogan was the draw, not Hall,Waltman and Nash. Nash, Hall and Waltman have all been on TNA broadcasts at various points. Nash has been there for years. The Hogan segment did draw a 1.9, which is quite good, but can Hogan deliver the goods next time around? Remember, this was Hogan's first ever appearance on iMPACT and it was live. Will Hogan pull in nearly 3 million people next time around to watch him walk down to ringside?

Before you go shitting down TNA'S throats, realize that in this short amount of time, where TNA would be fired up to even reach NEAR a 1.0 rating, that TNA has risen up in one SOLID NIGHT of action and gained a 1.5 rating. That's humungous considering where there were a year ago, to where they are now, and wrestling fans should thank Jeff Jarret, Hogan, and Dixie Carter for pushing wrestling back on Vince. TNA is FOR REAL.

Actually, in terms of overall ratings, TNA was doing roughly the same last year as it was this year. In terms of a decline, TNA has had some trouble over the past few months and has been averaging about a 1.0 on Thursdays since around September. The average episode of iMPACT in 2009 drew a 1.1, which is the same average rating the show had in 2008. Now, TNA being happy getting a 1.0 in the Nielsen Ratings was several years ago. TNA's biggest audience prior to Monday night was a 1.3 Nielsen Rating with an audience of 1.9 million. Last Monday, the show drew an overall 1.5 with an audience of 2.2 million. While it's an improvement and TNA should feel encouraged, let's not go nuts. It's an improvement but it's not THAT much of an improvement. The first hour of iMPACT this past Monday drew a 1.7 Nielsen Rating. The quarterly hour ratings were 1.6, 1.7, 1.8 and 1.7. The second hour, when Hogan made his debut, lost viewers as the show was now going head to head against Raw. The quarterly ratings for hour 2 were a 1.9, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.2. The 1.9 rating was when Hogan came out for the first time and, aver that, the ratings did start to go downhill. The second hour of the show wound up drawing a 1.4 and it continued to decline into the third hour. Quarterly ratings for the third hour were 1.2, 1.2, 1.2 and 1.3 for an average of 1.2. The first hour of iMPACT, in which it had no competition from the WWE, was the hour that helped it generate a 1.5 rating because the show lost viewers over the next two hours. Now, as I said, TNA should feel happy that it pulled a good rating. But let's not get carried away here. It's never a good sign when a show loses viewers over the course of its duration.

 

[onemandynasty08]

While I flipped between Raw and TNA on Monday Night, we can't jump to all these conclusions about the ratings without factoring in the Fiesta Bowl. I believe that there are a good number of guys out there who watch both wrestling and football. So we can't really be sure what channel was flipped between during the 3 hour period. However I'm not sure that the people at home were constantly flipping the channel between WWE, TNA, and football all throughout the night. When TNA lost fans we can't be sure if they switched the channel to RAW or football. Sometimes football games tend to be boring in the beginning, but seem to get as the end draws near. So of course near the end of the football game, people would be more likely to keep the channel there, so we can't be sure TNA was all at fault for losing viewers throughout the night. Viewers could have flipped betwen TNA and football, TNA and Raw, Raw and Football, or any other combinations.

We also must add that TNA is not all that well known. So to have them go against RAW and a bowl game, and still increase their ratings is a success. I was looking at a minute by minute ratings report on a website earlier and at 9 o clock when Hulk Hogan was on TNA had 3 million people watching them. Some people might have discovered TNA for the first time. However, one thing that TNA didn't do a lot of that I saw was that they didn't promote Thursday Nights as heavily as they should have. The casual channel surfer might not know to look to look for TNA on Thursday nights and may go back Monday, not find it, and forget all about it.

However, we can't go back in time to change all the things that happened on Monday, but we can't jump to conclusions.

 

[MrMcCool]

TNA fans are becoming as bad as they claim WWE fans are. Supposedly to WWE marks the WWE cant do anything wrong. Now we have TNA fans thinking any show TNA puts on is amazing, lol. Monday night was a good show but they failed to promote their own product!!! If TNA has some of the best wrestlers then why werent they focused on and profiled more? Morgan, Hernandez, AJ, Joe and Abyss, the X Division guys dont count because after that match people still dont know anything about them or have a reason to care about them.

Daniels gets pushed aside for Foley, Beer Money, the team Jarrett says is the best in wrestling, got beat up.

Nostalgia only lasts for so long and surprises are only good the first time they are introduced.

You show Hardy for 5 minutes and some small segments acting like he might not really wanna accept the contract, lol. Flair was watching AJ Styles, big deal. Sting was in the rafters, so he has regressed in his career and is back 10 years ago in WCW. Hall and Waltman are good to relive a great period, but that will not last the test of time. The Nasty Boys, well I dont even need to say anything, thats garbage!!!

TNA originals should be highlighted, promoted, profiled and the core of the show, it should have been planned out better than it was. The show was booked like the audience already knew all of the originals, and the viewers just tuning in dont know them, it was booked like Bischoff was still running WCW.

Bischoff is the bright spot however! He will do what is needed, its just that nobody can really help because one man cant do it alone, not even Vince McMahon did it alone. Vince had every right to not go all out, there was no need to!!!

 

[Dagger Dias]

I think that TNA did a very good job with the 1.5 they scored monday. It's not as high as some people might have wanted it to be, but it is the highest they have ever rated, PLUS they accomplished this while going up against Raw. That's still something to be proud of. I expect TNA to slowly climb up towards a 2.0 or higher soon, it might not happen that fast, but I think it can happen soon because they have bigger names now and are advertising more.

 

[MisterRob]

While I flipped between Raw and TNA on Monday Night, we can't jump to all these conclusions about the ratings without factoring in the Fiesta Bowl. I believe that there are a good number of guys out there who watch both wrestling and football. So we can't really be sure what channel was flipped between during the 3 hour period. However I'm not sure that the people at home were constantly flipping the channel between WWE, TNA, and football all throughout the night. When TNA lost fans we can't be sure if they switched the channel to RAW or football. Sometimes football games tend to be boring in the beginning, but seem to get as the end draws near. So of course near the end of the football game, people would be more likely to keep the channel there, so we can't be sure TNA was all at fault for losing viewers throughout the night. Viewers could have flipped betwen TNA and football, TNA and Raw, Raw and Football, or any other combinations.

Some good insight here. But, to me, it doesn't really matter where the audience went when they stopped watching TNA Impact, all that matters is the fact they stopped watching the show and lost interest on the product. That's a very telling sign.

People are praising TNA's show and the rating they got, which is fine. Be happy with what you like and get behind what you're loyal to, nothing wrong with that at all. But the only reason TNA's rating ended up at a 1.5 is because of the first unopposed hour. Usually their show isn't three hours, and if they were on Monday nights on a regular basis I'm guessing they're not going to be having a three hour show every week and instead will be going directly head to head with RAW for two hours. When you take that into account all you need to do is look at the numbers when they were competing, and against RAW they wouldn't have done anything but their average numbers. They wouldn't have increased or done any better then what they were doing the year before. Maybe that's an accomplishment that they kept their fan base and their regular audience, I'll give them that. But they certainly didn't gain any audience against RAW, and with the amount of marketing they put into building upto that night, the amount of money they spent in hyping their show, and the fact they had the biggest draw in wrestling, I don't really think that's something to give praise to. It's a telling sign there's something wrong with the product and people didn't watch for those two hours.

What I find is a problem though with the product they put out on Monday, whether you thought the actual show was good or not, I think they did a poor job of marketing the product for the future. As in, marketing the product so the casual viewers who did look at Impact could come back. They didn't really advertise Impact for it's regular timeslot and direct any new audience there to keep up the ratings (which is key). They also didn't really promote their product for first time viewers.. they gave no insight into all of these young wrestlers and TNA originals who casual fans or a new audience that has never watched TNA have never seen before, know nothing about, and have no kind of attachment to. They tossed them into matches, sure, but all they became were a bunch of wrestlers in a match. They should've done some kind of promos, some kind of video packages, highlighting some of their young talent before their matches. SOMETHING to make the viewers understand who the personality's they don't know are and maybe even become interested in. (A good example of this was the Pope, which I thought came across extroadinairely well). That would've been a better use of their time, in my eyes, then all the time they wasted on segments about Hogan's limo arriving (when he'd been there the whole day and his promo totally made those previous segments meaningless), or the Nasty Boys segments, or even the segments with the TNA fans, because I wanted to fast forward the TNA fans interviewed, personally, it certainly didn't garner interest.