Report: Dixie Carter Tell Talent to Expect "Major Announcement"

[It's Damn Real!]

According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, TNA President Dixie Carter has been telling people to expect a major announcement soon.

There are several possible options. As we’ve been reporting for several months, TNA is looking for a new television network to host Impact Wrestling on Wednesday nights, after their current contract extension with Spike TV expires at the end of 2014. They have been in talks with at least five different networks, and the big news could be the announcement of a new television deal. This would be incredibly significant, as the company won’t be signing any new talent contracts for most of their wrestlers until their future is more concrete.

Others have claimed that a “major talent signing” is in the works that would shock viewers once Impact taped new shows in early 2015. Last week there were rumors that TNA had made a play for CM Punk, but that is most definitely not happening, and TNA itself refuted the rumors.

There’s also Kurt Angle’s situation to consider. The latest reports are that WWE offered Angle a full-time contract to return to the company, but he turned them down because his body just can’t keep up with that kind of work load anymore. It’s expected that he will re-sign with TNA and be at the next set of TV tapings.

http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/519...telling-talent-to-expect-a-major-announcement

--

It's a report coming via The Wrestling Observer, and Meltzer specifically, so take it with whatever sized grain of salt you need.

Either way, we've seen a lot of indications that TNA are going to be moving on from Spike (or Spike will be moving away from TNA — whichever floats your boat). My bet is this is specific to whatever new network they're moving to, which would have a snowball effect on contracts re-signings. Specifically Angle's.

 

[Rayne]

http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/519...telling-talent-to-expect-a-major-announcement

--

It's a report coming via The Wrestling Observer, and Meltzer specifically, so take it with whatever sized grain of salt you need.

Either way, we've seen a lot of indications that TNA are going to be moving on from Spike (or Spike will be moving away from TNA — whichever floats your boat). My bet is this is specific to whatever new network they're moving to, which would have a snowball effect on contracts re-signings. Specifically Angle's.

Forgive me for being skeptical of any Dixie Carter "major announcement". Who knows; maybe she's learned the lesson from her major announcements of years past, and this will be the decree of their new home on a new network. Or, we could be told to watch Impact on Wednesday for huge news regarding the future of TNA, and have the show end with a Kurt Angle vignette. I'll wait until the actual announcement before getting hopes up.

But, hell, allow me to speculate on if this Major Announcement is TNA signing with a new network.

Positives: TNA gets to operate in 2015, and this allows them to start signing talent again, which, being honest, they currently do not have a high-caliber talent driven show right now. (This is different from having talented performers, which they do, but ones with low name recognition compared to years prior.) They'll finally be able to do something with the show, which has stagnated pretty badly recently. It might not be too late to build fresh excitement behind the product in people who have stopped watching the program.

Negatives: All of the networks that TNA has been negotiating with have less viewer reach than SpikeTV. The largest, WGN America, reaches about 80% of the households that Spike reached. If people can't watch the network, they can't watch the show, which means they can't watch the advertising, which means TNA gets paid less to produce the show, which means (barring another Panda Energy cash infusion, and it seems those days are done) that TNA won't have the funding which they had during the Spike days. In addition, this negotiation went down to the wire, with networks having all the leverage. Non-WWE programming isn't a 'can't miss' for any television network, and TNA was negotiating for the very existence of their company. Networks have a desperate seller, which means they can negotiate a lower price to purchase TNA programming. TNA has permanently changed from the 2010 days; you won't be seeing that again.

Any deal which lets TNA stay alive at this point is a good deal. TNA went into negotiations with a minimum price they were prepared to accept (the price which would allow them to produce their programming and, hopefully, pay their employees). We'll see what happens.

 

[SpecialFNK]

I don't know if this is true, but I read on another site that the major talent signing that would shock viewers was the resigning of Kurt Angle. shocking as in I guess most assumed he was gone, so I guess to sign him back is "major".

it wouldn't surprise me if this is what Dixie considers major. Dixie/TNA seem to have a habit of saying OMG/MAJOR NEWS and it's meh whatever. didn't TNA say there was a major champion returning, and it turned out to be Pac Man Jones for a brief appearance on Impact.

 

[HeyYo]

Dumb Ditzy and her ridiculous announcements. She hasn't heard of the story of the boy that cried wolf, has she?

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Thing is, while she most definitely has a history of decrying rather unimpressive announcements as "major", I'd liken a new television deal to being within that realm. A couple months ago, the story was essentially "enjoy these last few months, because TNA is dead". Well, a new TV deal would emphatically revive the company. To me, that constitutes as major.

 

[Morris The Grey]

I always thought that TNA should have been on My Network TV.
It is the historical home of WWE Smackdown and it was their highest rated show back then. Now they just syndicate reruns and I think they don't have any original programs.

Whatever network they choose, I imagine the it might be even more restrictive in regards to the content. Spike had their restrictions and it was the edgy man's channel. The new network might look at WWE and said they also want a PG product.

 

[stingray11214]

I always thought that TNA should have been on My Network TV.

MyNetworkTV is a subsidiary of Fox. Fox' brass views Wrestling, and their viewers, as low-rent lowlifes that no advertiser wants. TNA could have a 10 rating, with 10 million watching per week, and Fox would still thumb its nose.

 

[Rayne]

MyNetworkTV is a subsidiary of Fox. Fox' brass views Wrestling, and their viewers, as low-rent lowlifes that no advertiser wants. TNA could have a 10 rating, with 10 million watching per week, and Fox would still thumb its nose.

Comments like these, SMFH.

Television is not put out there to be this great shining example of art. Everytime you turn it on, at every second, people are paying to push that media into your home with the intention of making money from it. The executives that believe that they should only produce highbrow programming, no matter the cost? They don't fucking exist, because they get replaced with people who are interested in making money for their bosses.

The cold, hard fact of the matter is that professional wrestling isn't a huge money maker and driver of advertising. Professional wrestling audiences tend towards the lower income segment of the marketing, meaning on a per-viewer basis, the audience has less money to spend on products, which means that a 3.0 for RAW isn't the same as a 3.0 for name-your-sitcom. In addition to this, professional wrestling costs more money to produce than most other television programs. The WWE got the screws put to them on their last contract with USA not because the executives at USA Networks felt that professional wrestling wasn't a classy program and deserved less money as a result of it, it was because that 3.0 rating, heavy in the 12-18 bracket with less disposable income, doesn't make them as much money from advertising.

If TNA was pulling in a 10 rating, people would be lining up, asking just exactly whose dick they needed to suck in order to get their programming on their station, and sucking random dicks in the hopes that they'd end up sucking the right one. However, TNA pulls in a .8-.9 rating, which honestly isn't that great- especially considering the lower average income of professional wrestling fans.

You see the same exact kind of idiocy amongst the people who refuse to accept the fact that WCW was burning through money at a shocking rate and had lost half their audience, and insist that it must have been a conspiracy amongst TNT executives to get rid of programming they didn't approve of. It's not a rational answer, but it's one that feeds into the narrative of the insecure professional wrestling fan.