The first run episodes end on 11/19, and then the show will be pre-empted on 11/26. The plan now is to do three weeks of Best of Impact Wrestling shows on 12/3, 12/10 and 12/17 and that is possibly it. Officials at Spike have said no decision has been made regarding if they will air wrestling on 12/24 and 12/31.
There is tremendous frustration at this point because no TV deal has been reached. At press time we received word that negotiations took place this past week between TNA and Destination America, which is a station in the Discovery Network family. Destination America is Ch. 286 on DirecTV and Ch. 194 on Dish, and available in 60 million homes, or about 52% of the country. Based on sources close to the deal on the Destination America side, they should know by the end of the week if a deal will or wont be reached, or at least that was what they were thinking as of mid-week. Much like Velocity, Destination America don't have a lot of finance to offer TNA and the issue for TNA accepting the deal is, who will fund them and how long can they do it? If TNA take a deal like the one thats been put on the table the company will have to totally restructure, from its roster to the office to its production. They were booking smaller arenas for the last few tapings but the arenas still aren't cheap. To rent the Grand Ballroom for a night is $80,000. As best we can tell, everyone who has asked about a deal (its possible Kurt Angle is the exception) has been told that they cant talk with them until a TV deal is made. There has been talent told Spike is still in the running and was the most likely place, which kept people from being negative, but the preemptions dont seem to be a good sign. Others have also been told differently regarding Spike.
Talent has been told since Bound for Glory that a deal is about a week away. We do know there was tremendous frustration it didnt happen last week. In recent days talent was told to expect a deal reached by 11/19, which is the date of the last first-run episode of Impact on Spike. But we did confirm talks are close. This was the first week that some of the veterans were privately saying they really arent sure if the company is coming back. Al Snow, who is an agent, who only does rare indies because his regular job is working here, publicly said he was looking to fill up his calendar with dates starting next month.
Regarding the TV in Australia, there are more aspects to the situation. The station it is on is being rebranded. It was on Fuel, which has been rebranded in Australia as Fox Sports 5, which is actually a positive because its getting a better spot on cable channel lineup. However, the station didnt air Impact this week. Impact used to air on Fuel on Saturday nights, and it aired on Saturday night, but only on the PPV channel rather than a TV channel. Foxtel said that they are doing nothing with TNA unless they sign an American television deal. If they get a TV deal, theyll probably wind up back on either Fox Sports 5 or Fox Sports 4. As I've said previously, without an American TV deal all of TNA's international ones are rendered useless. There is no profit to be made from recording TV for just international markets.
