TNA Needs To Give Fans A Reason To Tune In Each Week

[Kenny Powers]

I think the problem for a while now is that TNA doesn't promote their matches for each week on Impact. The viewers don't know who is going to wrestle unless they go to TNA's website or they find it out when they actually tune in that Thursday night.

I think Impact needs to promote their matches like Raw where each week they could plug a tag match or a main event for next week. So far the only thing viewers have to tune in to is to see what Hogan and Bischoff will do next. That's find and dandy, but who is going to wrestle next week? What's the main event?

The same can be said about the PPVs. It seems lately that the main event matches for PPVs are only showcased the last week or two of Impact. The rest of the card usually falls flat or isn't promoted at all.

Hogan, Flair, and Bischoff aren't enough for viewers to tune in. If TNA goes live I think they should focus on promoting matches for each week instead of leaving the viewers guessing as to who will wrestle next week.

Do you think TNA should do this to gain interest and new viewers? Do you think TNA is doing fine without promoting matches for next week on Impact?

 

[Schizophrenic]

I do agree with ya that this is an issue that should be adressed. Grantit with the tapins schedule and TNA has been known to tape something at the beggining for something on the last show it could just be confusing but that should be adressed by doing tapings as they will be shown. But yesI think if TNA were to announce a big tag match or a big title match the week before (or even two weeks before) viewers would tune in to watch it.

 

[legendkiller420]

i disagree tna does give the fans a reason to tune in each week.like jan 4th many wrestlers debuted with the company that night and they promoted that there would be more surprises and changes down the road that right there made me wanna tune in to see who would debut and see what chances would take place


also they have many storylines going on now that caught my interest like the screw job yes they copied from wwe but its still different kurt didnt leave after the screw job bret did so that right there made me wanna tune in to see what kurt and hulk would do next.

also another storyline they got going that has me on the end of my seat is the "band",eric young and kevin nash storyline that storyline right there has me wanting more and makin me tune in every week

i think a thread should be made about wwe. wwe needs to give fans a reason to tune in every week they have nothing going for them besides the bret storyline which is ok but really isn't that good and having the money. there tag team and diva division sucks that division is a joke imo at least tna's womens division have well done storylines and also have build to them unlike wwe and also tna women matches last longer to i have noticed that.


you all probably think im some big tna mark but im really not i have only been watching tna for about four months. i watched wwe for years and was a big fan of it til the lil fucking midget, the pg era, the no blood rule took over and the womens division became a joke.now back on topic the only thing i think tna needs to do is promote there product more/better.

 

[milfy21]

Honestly Tna gives me more of a reason lately then the wwe they do the same matches with the same 6-8 people everyweek atleast with Tna and there so call old talent they make the matches and the wrestler seem fresh by not over using them. Hopefull wwe will do this with ecw going down. TNA even let someone get a clean non title win over the champ let me know the last time that ever happen on raw hell when has the champ really even got a clean win other then christain which i think was awful!

 

[LSN80]

I agree with you completely. It is a problem when a show doesnt promote its own product week to week.

Think of your favorite sitcom for example. A few of mine are Burn Notice and Psych. What happens at the end of each episode? They show a, get this, preview of whats going to happen on next weeks show! Imagine that! Then they plug the hell out of it on USA by advertising them at least once a day!

Ive YET to tune into Spike during the week and see ANYTHING about TNA. Look at what WWE does. All week, since Carl Edwards announced it, theylve been promoting the biggest main event in recent memory(granted, they say that every week) HHH vs John Cena. Why? So they can draw viewers! Its such a novel concept, yet so effective.

The only time in recent memory I remember seeing a commerical for TNA was for their January 4th special featuring the beginning of the Hogan era. They even plugged it during RAW on the USA network. Now thats GOOD marketing. Why they havent capitilized on that, and continued to do that, is beyond me. I WANT to know whats next. I want to be teased and given a reason to tune in. Youre right. Seeing Hogan and Flair for nostalgia sake isnt going to hook long term viewers. Better advertising will(along with a better product). Excellent thread topic.

 

[Skorpiunz]

i think you guys are absolutly wrong. We don;t ave to know who is fighting who exactly in every match. Main event i could see but otherwise this is another petty thing that is being used to try and bash on TNA.

from a personal perspective and response to the sentance "TNA Needs To Give Fans A Reason To Tune In Each Week".. my reaso for tuning in is the A class wrestling and UNIQUE off the walls stories and promos.

The reason any of you should tune in every week is to watch wrastlin and to watch the feuds.

 

[FromTheSouth]

I knod of agree. I would like to know what match is going to be highlighted the next week, however, I don't think it's too critical.

Furthermore, I think not announcing matches tends to add to the unpredictability of the show. Part of the allure of the Attitude era was the appearance that the show was being booked on the fly. It was as if the roster was expected to show up and they would get told what to do and when to do it.

I feel that as long as the wrestlers know the plan, keeping the fans in the dark is OK. It adds to the story.

However, if we are trying to judge this as a ratings draw, it is important that the fans know what will be on the next week. It would help draw casual viewers in.

 

[Lrrodri_86]

I agree with the whole giving me something to look foward to but not for the same reason. I tune into tna because I don't know what is scheduled and can't wait to see what they have instore. But since the mr. Anderson Jeff Jarret main event a couple weeks back I haven't been left with that I can't wait for next week feeling especially after last weeks end was so predictable. TNA was picking up steam and moving quickly in the right direction untill the began to prioritizies the band as the main event how can you end a show with band jumping angle instead of the aj styles samoa Joe angle which will be your main event for the ppv. I'm sticking with tna in hopes that they get it together but no more predictability please leaving me on the edge of my seat waiting for the storylines to develope.

Just my thoughts.

 

[mister_b1LL]

I think at least the main event of an Impact taping or a really big "Bret Hart calls out Vince McMahon type" promo should always be hyped ahead of time. Those are the most important matches of the night and for casual viewers watching wrestling that's the only part of the show they care about.

But I am a fan of the unexpected. I always like to be pleasantly surprised every week. Like when Abyss/Foley was added to the 8 Card Stud tournament, I thought that was gonna be one of the fights that night, but to put it as a PPV match was cool.

TNA needs to find a nice balance of the expected and the unexpected. It'll make for good, wholesome, satisfying TV.

 

[a0161613]

I agreed until the point about PPVs. I thought Impact this week did a superb job of promoting Against All Odds. The 8 card stud now is really interesting to me, to the point where I am contemplating buying it on Video Vault. Between that and the AJ / Joe match, I think it could be an epic PPV.

Impact hype is a problem. I think part of the problem is not being live, their taping schedule means there can be no genuine hype because of spoilers. But also until they do something with Spike about the simple lack of advertising on the channel (and same with Bravo in the UK), they may never acess the range of audience WWE has.

For example, on Sky 1, I see WWE Superstars and WWE Experience. Bravo aren't even showing repeats of the original Epics programming anymore.

 

[psykohurricane]

Advertising has been the biggest problem TNA since they started. Not just on there program with match but in general as well. But since we are talking about IMPACT i guess you right, they don'T really advertise anything about the show but it's been like this ever since they stop doing their weekly PPV and left Fox Sportsnet. But now it's getting even worst because ever since Bischoff and Hogan came in, they forget to advertise their PPV's as well. Genesis was pretty much book at the last minutes and they only had 3 days to promotes the PPV and against all odds isn'T better because it took 2 weeks before finally knowing what the main event was for the PPV and even then it got change around again last thursday. How is any TNA fans suppose to care about buying their PPV especially at 35$ when they don't know what's the main event is going to be. If people forgot to tune in for the last 2 episode of IMPACT, they probably don'T know that the MAin Event for against all odds is Aj vs Joe with Bischoff as the ref. All they know is that the nasty's will face team 3D and their some sort of tourney going on, that's going to bring people to pay for the PPV's. The main event is the most important part of any wrestling show and should be promoted in advance, just look for exemple next weeks Raw, What the main event for next week raw, it'S John Cena vs HHH. They've been promoting the hell out of this match for the past week so you know that people will be tuning in to RAw to see that match. The main event for the Elimation Chamber match is on of the 2 elimination chamber match so before they even advertise the undercard, they made sure that the fans knew who was in the main event. TNA doesn'T do that, with IMPACT they pretty much let you guess what going to happen next week and they build -up and promote the undercard before having a main event and as far as IMPACT is concern, it's been like this for years now.

I've been a TNA fans since the very beginning, i went through a lot of shit with them over the year and the more it went on the more i slowly stop caring, since Hogan came in i just watch IMPACT because there nothing else interesting on TV and i stop caring about the product as a whole, so much so that instead of paying 35$ for their PPV's, i keep it and do something else with it. When the start giving me a reason to watch again, i'll start caring again but for know i'm just a casual fan that's watching TNA because they're nothing else on T.V.

 

[FormerTNAFan]

First time poster, long-time board reader.

TNA's Disaster Thanksgiving show pushed me over the edge. I am pretty sure that I am done with this "organization" unless they make some major changes. What I watched on Thursday was the most awful wrestling program that I have ever seen (I have been watching wrestling for over twenty years). I am not exxagerating, not even in the last days of the WCW did I find myself HATING what I was watching. Bored, sure. Pissed off, sure. But Hating, no.

TNA needs to give the fans something to lookforward to. One thing would be to get out of the Impact Zone. There is no chemistry in that place.

What I don't understand is why TNA will pay to do house shows all over the country, in Europe, and even in the Middle East, yet they won't send four or five cameras along and tape it. They could do all of the post-production later. I wouldn't be mad at them for pre-taping shows if there were a reason (new, exciting venues, DIFFERENT FANS).

They might actually get some attention if it was billed on tv as Impact from England! or Impact from the Middle East. People wouldn't care that it was pre-taped, people would think it was cooler than watching regular Impact (I have seen High School Gym's that have more seats and are better looking than the "Impact Zone")

YOU CAN'T BUILD HEELS IN THE IMPACT ZONE

While we are on the topic of pre-taping...take a look at next month's taping schedulE. They have a live PPV on a Sunday, then tape Impact Mon, Tues, Thurs., and Fri. Since Impact tapes at 6pm, and spoilers are usually available by 8pm, you may potentially be able to know what will happen for three weeks of post PPV-impact before the first post-PPV Impact airs. How cheesy is it that they will be taping an Impact the same night they air Impact?

I understand that we have free will and choose to read spoilers, but, as they say, "that's life." TNA'S RATINGS WILL NEVER RISE UNTIL THEY STOP TAPING SHOWS THREE TO FOUR WEEKS AHEAD OF TIME.

Also, what is the point of Fourtune now? AJ has a TV belt. Kaz barely wrestles, Beer Money is supposedly part of the IMMORTALS, the self-described best faction in wrestling history, yet they aren't making a push for the tag titles.

Having Fourtune in Immortal turns Immortal (which is two guys that don't wrestle, a "monster" that doesn't win, and a champ that hardly defends) makes the whole gimmic fall flat on its face.

Immortal must have been a back-up plan for "they" If it wasn't, they company really is run by morons

Thanks for letting me vent. As a wrestling fan it bothers me that the only company that can compete with WWE shoots itself in the foot. They have everything they need to take the next step, but don't.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I kind of agree that they could promote certain happenings on the show as well as plug matches that they have on the card. It couldn't hurt by any stretch and it might generate interest. For example, if I learn that the MCMGs are going to have a match against...say Beer Money on next week's iMPACT!, then plug the hell out of the match on this week's show and I'd definitely be more interested in tuning in. Might not work out that way every single time of course, but I fail to see how it can hurt. There was a street fight between Rhino & Tommy Dreamer this past Thursday. Why not hype that match the week before or at least throughout the show? Some viewers watching last week might say "Oh, that might be worth checking out". But, the match is little more than another in the line of boring 4 minute street fights we see on iMPACT! every so often.

I feel that some of TNA's biggest problems lie in their inability to make interesting matches or memorable events special and they're just unable to follow up on things in the long term. For instance, Jeff Hardy turning heel is something of a big deal I'd imagine since he has been one of the most over faces in wrestling for quite some time. He goes out with Immortal/Fortune the iMPACT! after BFG, cuts a little 20 second promo and gets overshadowed by Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff & Ric Flair. In the following weeks, they feature little promo videos that last maybe another 15 or 20 seconds, maybe a little more, and that's it. He has a match a few weeks ago against Raven in which Raven's "career" is on the line but they do nothing to build it or hype it. Jeff Hardy, the reigning TNA World Heavyweight Champion, has a match on the show in which his opponent is fired if he loses and it gets nothing. It's a lame, forgettable match that lasts 3 minutes. Jeff Hardy should be the top heel in the company but he's not. He should be truly helping to build this feud and upcoming title match with Matt Morgan, but he's not. Jeff Hardy turning heel should've been something big and it felt that way for a short time. Now, it's just another occurrance in a storyline.

This past Thursday, Dixie Carter's appearance on the show should've been something momentous. She's invovled in a story/power struggle against Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan. What we get is her appearing on television backstage for about 2 minutes. I think that should've deserved a bit more time than what it was given. It may have meant trimming some fat from the segments featuring Jeff Jarrett pretending to be the next MMA superstar, but I'd have been doubly fine with that.