Dixie Changing TNA's PPV Format?

[Jack-Hammer]

Last night, Dixie Carter gave an interview on the Live Audio Internet Wrestling show and the host, John Pollock, brought up TNA's ppv formula and format and carter had this to say:

"I'm not a big fan of monthly PPVs, quite honestly, but you have contracts that keep you held in and bound at times," Carter said. "We're definitely talking about trying to shake things up and do things differently in the future."

It looks as though Dixie is looking to eventually alter TNA's pay per view format at some point. As far as I know, TNA doesn't put out data detailing it's monthly ppv buys, at least not officially but we all know how stuff leaks out. From what I understand, they've never come close to having 100,000 or more buys for any ppv. Even though exactly what she has in mind to shake things up isn't known, is it a good idea to change the monthly ppv format?

 

[Maikeru_1979]

i really think that it can do them some good. if they went to one every two months i think it would help build stories for them and get the viewer more interested

 

[jaxster]

I wish they would all go back to 4 PPV's a year and two 3 hour live (clash of Champions style) shows to compete against the other companies event on a sunday. The four ppv's were great and had a better build up instead of the same old crap every ppv. It made it worth buying it. I sent Dixie Carter a 32 page letter with what is wrong in TNA. Will I ever hear back hell no but I paid 40 bucks for that last piece of crap they called a ppv and needed to vent. I have been a fan of this sport of 30 yrs and paid my dues as a fan of WWE pushing crap down our throats especially with no real competition. I just wish TNA would step it up and stop with the old timers who can not move around. That might improve the PPV's as well.

 

[InfoWarlord]

Unless they plan on going back to the old weekly PPV format then I'm going to be pissed. Not having a PPV at least once a month is a huge step backwards for TNA. I know they're going to get another show on Spike but still. I've read TNA has had some low PPV buy rates, so this can only be a cost cutting move.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

I have mixed feelings about this, but it is an experiment definitely worth trying. This is probably an experiment WWE would like to do, but they are too uneasy about trying it. Undoubtedly, they will have their eyes on the results of this little test.

Will Less Equal More?

In TNA's case, I think it is possible, as they have a longer time period to build feuds and build the anticipation to the next match. Right now, their PPV's are too much money given what you get in return ... and too much money to pay every single month. If TNA is successful at braining the wrestling audience that this is the way to go, then there is a very small chance that they could start a trend ... especially determining how aggressive they want to get against WWE if they try this move.

 

[Wrath]

The biggest problem in TNA's PPVs are they book so many matches that people even don't want to see on iMPACT. As a wrestling even though I didn't watch the whole PPV I would at least watch the PPV on stream. But in TNA's PPV I really don't wanna watch it. There is nothing worth seeing. The other problem is they lack build ups so much. Just see how Jethro Holiday or what the fuck his name is added to a match with Abbys. I didn't have an idea about month ago if he is still with the company. Who would pay to watch it ? Main events are also another problem. All of the main eventers are past their prime. If TNA had those wrestlers in 98-99 it would be fucking awesome. I still can't think how many great feuds would come out of it. But right now these feuds means nothing. So why would someone want to pay 30 bucks that they really don't care.

As for TNA stopping PPVs from what I heard TNA still didn't put out the data of PPV buys. So I don't believe any other sources other than TNA. I don't think Slammiversary was a very bad PPV and did that bad numbers. I'm not an economist but I know one thing for sure. Even though you make a profit of very little amount of money after every PPV they should keep on doing it because you make profit it doesn't hurt you but if they lose money after every PPV they have to get rid of some PPVs. There isn't any point of having 14 in a year to compete with WWE while you're losing money. So if it makes some profit to TNA it means it's a good thing but if they lose money all the time they should stop doing PPVs. So as long as TNA makes profit from PPVs even though with buys like 7.000 I don't care neither should TNA.

As for fans who love old school build ups like myself I think it would be a great way to return that type of booking. The last time I remember we saw that kind of build up in Hogan vs Sting feud. It would really help more to establish younger guys. Just think of a Aj Styles vs Kurt Angle feud for a year which ends at Bound For Glory. It would be fucking epic even though we saw Aj vs Kurt for hundred times. So for me it would be better for me on booking side.

 

[spinningtorturerack]

Personally i think 4 ppv's a year is too few and i knew it worked in wwe but then that was a slower pace of wrestling where as in this modern day an audience expects a fast-paced style.

However i do agree once a month is too much with nothing developing in time (also evident in WWE) so once every 2 months would be perfect, or adding a second show so we have twice the air time to really develop storylines. Thats why in wwe attitude era e had great feuds - two shows meant four hours a week to really add something to a feud unlike now with brand extension and stuff.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

The more I think about it, I just can't decide where I stand on this idea. It could be very beneficial or it could blow up in their face.

On one hand, if TNA were to reduce their ppvs to maybe 6 a year, it's possible that more could tune in to TNA in order to see matches that might be closer to "ppv quality" than normal for free rather than having to pay for them. Potentially, they could also develop feuds and storylines over a longer period of time.

On the other hand, TNA could wind up losing a lot of money from such a venture. TNA doesn't officially put out their ppv buyrates, but leaks happen and I remember reading that their average ppv buyrate was around 26,700 for 2008. TNA seems to draw a consistent 1.2 average Nielsen Rating with Impact and they seem to draw consistently with ppvs among their following. There's been some mention here, and from other posts I've read about both companies reducing their ppvs, of TNA running 4 ppvs a month and I just don't think that's all that feesible. If TNA's ppvs drew an average of 26,700 with 12 programs, and if that number remains the same throughout this year, that means a grand total of a little over 320,000 total buys for the year. Now, once again this is mostly just some guess work, but IF those buyrate figures are accurate and if TNA kept the ppvs around the same price, then those 4 ppvs would have to draw over 80,000 buys in order to equal what they did with 12 if that's the format they were to go with.

Ultimately, I dunno. There's a little too much speculation overall regarding what TNA has planned for the ppv format. When I look at the numbers they do in the ratings and the ppv buys, if and I do mean if the buys are accurate, I don't know if TNA has the financial stability to make such a dramatic change to the format right now.

 

[Viola Moonlight]

Since TNA is a company still on the rise, still gaining fans & trying to find some sort of system that works whilst trying to keep afloat... why not try an experiment with the amount of PPV's? I could not hurt TNA's already low buyrates for the events & could possibly help the company build more time for storylines & feature more matches on the weekly shows as they would have basically double the time to add fuel to the fire concerning feuds.

If all fails & the PPV dies in the arse, then TNA can easily take back those dates as the WWE will not be seizing anything owned by TNA unless it is pure gold... which more PPV dates isn't currently for the E & ROH has a special agreement between each other & both parties wouldn't want to ruin the bond they currently share.

 

[gd]

Since TNA is a company still on the rise, still gaining fans & trying to find some sort of system that works whilst trying to keep afloat... why not try an experiment with the amount of PPV's?

Because it would possibly destroy the company.

I could not hurt TNA's already low buyrates for the events

It wouldn't hurt the average buyrates, but TNA's total buyrates for the year would be hurt drastically. If they changed from 12 to 6 PPVs a year, they would need each of those 6 PPVs to get twice as many buyrates as normal to break even, which would be unlikely.

& could possibly help the company build more time for storylines & feature more matches on the weekly shows as they would have basically double the time to add fuel to the fire concerning feuds.

It would just make feuds longer and more drawn out. It wouldn't actually create more feuds. To do that, TNA would need more weekly TV time.

If all fails & the PPV dies in the arse, then TNA can easily take back those dates as the WWE will not be seizing anything owned by TNA unless it is pure gold... which more PPV dates isn't currently for the E & ROH has a special agreement between each other & both parties wouldn't want to ruin the bond they currently share.

They may be able to get the dates back, but they won't get back the millions of dollars they will likely move.

There is no reason for TNA to decrease it's PPVs at this time. In wrestling today, the norm is a monthly pay per view. The fans want as much action as possible, and if many are willing to pay for a monthly PPV, why not do it? A lot of people may complain about not getting enough time to build up feuds, but that has to do with weekly TV time, not PPVs. I'm not convinced that by limiting PPVs they would get more buys either. If so, it would probably only be a very small amount. TNA is doing fine right now finiancially. I don't see one good reason why Dixie Carter would want to reduce the amount of PPVs, it would only fail misarabely.

 

[absent]

It wouldn't hurt the average buyrates, but TNA's total buyrates for the year would be hurt drastically. If they changed from 12 to 6 PPVs a year, they would need each of those 6 PPVs to get twice as many buyrates as normal to break even, which would be unlikely.

It's not as simple as that you, need to take into account the cost of staging and airing a PPV, from talent costs, to venue costs, promotion, event management, TV production, satellite hire, the payment to PPV channels for carrying the event and a whole lot more. It may be that by halving the number of PPVs they only need to increase the buys on the remainder by 20% to make the same amount of profit overall. Only TNA will know this though, since only they know what their accounts look like.

 

[CenaSux4Life78]

I enjoy TNA, just about as much as WWE. But I am starting to lose interest in WWE, well the PPV that is. The idea of "themed" ppv's 2 or 3 times a year just bore the hell out of my mind. Once a year is fine....like TNA and Lockdown.

What kind of change is Dixie thinking...one can only guess. But yes, I think that one every two months or even three, would be better. TNA can build better story lines, and perhaps even draw higher ratings for that. Now, less ppv would mean less money...but I think as a one year expirement it could work if you do it without a flaw.

 

[Slyfox696]

First of all, for people who say that TNA doesn't do very good PPV business, I would just like to point out they probably do roughly the same percentage of PPV buys per their wrestling audience as the WWE does. So, percentage wise, they are probably close to being on par with the WWE. For example, if the WWE has 10 million viewers worldwide, and does 200,000 PPV buys, that comes out to roughly 2%. If TNA has 2 million viewers worldwide, and does 40,000 PPV buys (which is the general range that has been reported time and again), that also comes out to about 2%.

So, as far as TNA not doing good PPV business, they're not doing bad PPV business either, in terms of percentage of audience to fanbase, and when compared to the WWE.


As far as having less PPVs, I think that is a tremendous idea. It allows for the build up of better feuds, guys can work less often which maximizes buying potential, and it gives undercard workers more time on free TV to work matches. It's like I said in the UFC thread, one of the appeals to the UFC, and why they get so many PPV buys, is that you only get to see your favorite workers fight a few times a year. With wrestling, you see them fight at LEAST 12 times a year, and sometimes as much as 30 or 40 times. That takes away from the specialness of it. And since PPV is a MUCH more lucrative business than free tv, if you can maximize PPV profits, then you're following a good business model.

We'll see if it happens and if it works out.

 

[andymcg]

To start we dont even know what Dixie means with "shaking things up with PPVs". It could mean more PPVs a year (god forbid), less PPVs a year, Longer PPV air time (4 hours ?), shorter PPV air time (highly doubtful), back to old style PPV formats, cross promotion PPVs with ROH or somthing, i dont know, the options are endless.

However lets go with what looks logical and that is less PPVs. To my knowledge it was Bischoff who started to up the PPVs to one a month, sure back in the days of having all them wrestling stars and wrestling being HUGE it was fine. Now a days though i think its just to much, i think it would be a good idea to cut down to miby 6 PPVs, then like someone said maybe 2 clash of the champion type things.

Lets just see what dixie has in mind though.