And then you left like a little kid. I'll apologize for calling you an idiot but not for that.
I left because I wasn't interested in talking with you. Your soliloquy on why I'm a moron pretty much spells out why. If walking away is childish then so be it.
Now I hate these line by line debates because they always force me to repeat the same point over and over again, and even a skilled writer like myself only has so many synonyms available, so excuse me if I skip to the relevant parts.
Then why have they not seemed to grow at all recently, why are they paying Hogan and Bischoff and Flair the likely high prices for the same ratings that AJ and Daniels and Joe were getting while being the laughingstock of the wrestling world this side of CZW, why are they parodying/stealing/redoing WWE ideas from the same year? If that's what you call success you be my guest. I'd rather have them expand (to a point where it's noticeable) than stay the same but that's just me.
Well a global recession tends to put a cramp in business growth in most areas. WWE has enjoyed ratings shrinkage more or less across the board. 2010 was probably the worst year Smackdown has ever had. RAW's rating is down heavily from where it was when TNA started. ECW died. Superstars is looking like going the same way. Ring of Honor lost their TV deal (I think; don't have a damn clue personally). During these tough times Impact is actually the only wrestling boradcast that has reliably retained it's audience, so perhaps taking an absence of massive growth as proof of shitness might be a touch more naive than you think.
We don't have much wrestling in the UK, but we have plenty of soap operas which are exactly the same principle. Read an interview with the people who put them together and you'll find that the business is a constant battle to retain your audience. TNA is doing this better than anyone else in their market, so unless everyone else is even more dogged down with problems that only you can realize (I do like your superiority over the people running the show) then they must be doing something right.
Draw? No. It's not drawing an audience. It did at one point but it's not now. It is however maintaining one. The bold part is the crux of this. TNA does indeed make money from the sources and reports that I've heard, true. I would call that a success. What I wouldn't call a success though is not living up to the potential that it has, which is where TNA is a failure.
I didn't understand part of this. It's not drawing an audience? Aside from the audience it draws of course.
Firstly, every company in the world, from Microsoft to my fictitious cousin's lemon-aid stand, has potential for growth in excess of it's current size. The fact that something doesn't achieve it's potential is hardly a reason to brand it a failure, and certainly not a reason for the kind of comical doom-saying that you lavish upon TNA.
It does what it is supposed to do. Growth is very slowly happening. Fast growth is almost impossible with a constantly recurring television series in the modern era. Those people who think TNA could shoot up to a 2.0 in a couple of years are sadly lacking in an understanding of the real world. Pushing for growth comes with risk, hell you a lovely negative TNA example to use as an example for this in the form of the Monday Night Fiasco that everyone admits was a disaster caused by trying to grow too fast.
If you have steady consistent growth and are making enough money to justify your existence then you are a success in any market.
See, actually it was. I'm a wrestling fan with money that I could spend on TNA. If TNA, an entertainment company, isn't convincing me to spend my money on them then they're not doing their job. If a studio makes a movie and no one goes to see it, it could be the best put together, best acted best written film of all time. But if it doesn't sell a ticket, it's got nothing to say.
If a studio makes a movie and nobody goes to see it then it's a failure. If a studio makes a movie and
you don't go to see it, but enough people do to make it profitable, then it is a success.
You've already conceded that TNA makes money, so it clearly is doing it's job.
What growth? There's no way you can prove that they're growing or that I can prove they're not growing. For all we know they're doing more buys on PPV than WWE. We can't know that though. There's no way to prove whether or not they're growing other than with the information we have, meaning TV ratings and audience, which has been in the same range for years.
Remove anomalous data and they've been trending consistently up. Not as fast as you think they should be, but since your estimate of what their growth rate should be is plucked out of thin air, I don't think anyone in TNA will be losing sleep if they don't match it.
Let's say that's two years. That's a few no? In two years' time (2008-2010) their TV ratings went from an average of 1.05 (08) to 1.17 (09) and back to 1.05 (10). Their ratings have never been higher thant hey were in 09. In other words, the current regime has taken them from the best they've ever gotten down to back where they started, not counting the additional salaries brought on by Hogan, Bischoff and Flair. In other words, a slightly higher rating has already been done. How can it be considered growth if it's already been done?
Personally I'd say half a decade is how long you should use for a decent sample.
Oh, and cute idea. Next time you use the ratings information, take twenty seconds to study it instead of just skipping to the shiny number at the bottom. TNA did not draw a 1.17 in 2009. 1.08-1.12 is a reasonable estimation.
This year I have to make an excuse for the company. They Monday night fiasco hammered TNA hard. I admit that. Eric Bischoff admits that. TNA lost a big chunk of it's audience due to that, and had to spend months in recovery. For the half year not dominated by the disastrous move TNA has outdrawn itself compared to 2009.
It is an educated guess, thought not an unreasonable one, that TNA would have again trended slightly upwards but for the Monday night fuck up. Nobody is trying to defend that, but that was a failure of business rather than a failure of product.
No no no. You're far from it. You're a TNA mark like IDR. As in the kind that is knowledgeable and fun to hear the opinions of.
Me being able to write a good post has nothing to do with my motivation for watching a television show.
Very difficult to say. As I said, there are far more issues with TNA than the on screen product. Not many people know about TNA and there's little advertising for what's upcoming. The main problems I see are in the philosophy of the booking. Take for instance last week with RVD vs. Hardy. That match was fine for a TV or even PPV main event. It's a big match that if given time and letting the fans know the history, could draw a nice rating or buyrate.
Instead we were given two hours notice so if you didn't see the show, you had no idea it was coming. The same can be said for a bunch of TNA matches, like Anderson vs. Hardy at Genesis. Knowing that Hardy could lose would be something people would want to see, but instead it was added on as a surprise, keeping potential buyers and therefore money away. That's the main thing I would change.
That and stop saying you're going to have a match and then not have it. Take AJ vs. Flair tonight. That was publicized last week and again tonight. This is a common practice in TNA and was in WCW as well. It's fine once in awhile but eventually it catches up to you, ala Starrcade 97. The reason TNA gets on my nerves is I see the little things like that which add up and ultimately catch up to you. I'd give the fans something to chew on once in awhile rather than false finishes, 10 minutes of wrestling before the 15 minute main event, and less building to one show only to say oh well it's actually the NEXT show you want to see to get some resolution.
A very nice little speech, but given that the question it was answering was "How much could TNA grow" and not "How would TNA grow" I find it of questionable relevancy.
To go once more over what we've learned...
- A company is not a failure because you don't like it.
- TNA is a successful business
- A wrestling company is a business, and not some kind of live action art gallery.
- Success is good.
- TNA is a good wrestling company.
If you still hate it then good for you.
