TNA's budget - "Money limitations are the problem?"

[gg inferno]

But what is the point of getting your name in the mainstream press? Why you want people who are NOT watching your show to know about it? After they learn about TNA, what do they then do? Hmmm?

yout first two questions could be the two stupidest questions ever asked about a television show that is looking to draw new viewers. you should just drop out of this discussion, because your level of knowledge is beyond minimal.

 

[MrOctober]

Getting your name in the mainstream press is free advertising. Exposing your product to a group of people who don't know about it. Why do you do that? To get them to watch it, it's not hard to figure out. Tyson, Rodman, Lauper, LT, Pacman, Malone, Kevin Greene and so on were all used to expose those companies to new fans to try to get them to watch the shows.

 

[kingdom_come]

then i'd say tna sucks and doesn't know what they're doing, since we're dealing in hypotheticals. but to point out the facts, they got a network, and ratings did improve. the NETWORK wanted the show in prime time and two hours. kingdom come may not like the ratings, but neither i nor tna has to answer to kingdom come. tna has to answer to the network, who is happy with the show. when TNA asks for more money from the owners to produce a bigger show, then they will have to answer to the owners if the ratings don't improve. until then, i would suggest that posters don't try to involve themselves in discussions about the business side of tna, because from what i see, pretty much nobody has enough knowledge on the matter to discuss it.

You are completely missing the point. I know that TNA does not have to answer to "Kingdom Come" or the fans since they are a private company and none of us own stock with them.

The point is that TNA should be doing whatever they can do to make a more marketable product so that the fans that do support will be justified in such support.

TNA has to not only keep the Spike TV network happy they also have to keep the FANS happy. A TNA that is dropping in the ratings is not one that can keep fans completely happy. After a while certain fans will start to question their support of the product.

Why? Because people do not want to be associated with a LOSER!

TNA can please Spike TV all they want but until they close the gap on WWE some people will still consider them LOSERS!!

-------------------------

Now, on budget again I will say that TNA has to learn how to do more with less. If the current people in management can not do this Dixie Carter and/or Jeff Jarrett need to look at bringing in people that can get the job done.


***

On "lower budget" .. TNA should look more to the fans to help out in certain areas. 1 area for example is in their online presence. The TNA website is a joke! One idea to help improve this would be to have a contest to see which fan can create the best "fan" related website. The winner of the competition to become the new TNA site designer.

As it is right now there is no reason for fans to even go to tnawrestling.com. There is no "in house" fan forum or chatroom, there is no "in house" video library, and there are no "must read" articles posted there. The only thing you get from going to the website is a bunch of "buy this - buy this" advertising.

If TNA wants people to buy things on their website they have to 1st draw them there with quality "online" entertainment or at least a fan community.

***

 

[hollyric]

I do believe TNA is doing quite fine with the happiness of fans. Of course, you are never going to please all the fans. If you as a fan get what you want, another fan will be unhappy saying they didn't want that. People wanted Samoa Joe as champ, now he is, and other people want someone else as the champion. Ratings have declined since he became one.

 

[anonymous]

"I think the first thing they need to do is find someone else to replace Don West. I've actually tried watching the last few Impacts and his voice is horrible and you can hear his dry inhales EVERY time he gets caught up into something. Someone with a more appealing voice would do a better job. Or they could go the route of just having Tenay doing the commentating alone."

The announcing is one of those things that I think is overstated in importance. I really doubt that many people are truly watching a wrestling show for its announcing. Also, I don't know about anyone else, but I generally just tune out the announcing when matches are happening. I am not saying that the announcing has no importance, but I feel that it is overexaggerrated in it's importance. Also, I feel with the negative stigma that TNA gets in the internet community, many of these fans will bash anything from TNA including the announcing to the point where I have actually heard someone leave feedback on pwtorch saying that of all people, Mike Adamle was on point in his announcing one time.

"Then there's overhauling the production that's in some major need of upgrading. Theme music, music for the show, videos, replacing the cheap version of James Earl Jones that does the voiceovers, etc."

I have to agree. I also thought it would help (and only help) if they had better ring music for many of the wrestlers. There is a lot of generic music for some of these guys that I cannot distinguish who is coming out because of the generic music.

"But if they had all that and didn't improve in the ratings, then what would be the excuse then? First it was a network. They got that. Then it was having a show in prime time. They got that too. Then there's a two hour show. They have that. What next if they get a bigger budget and don't improve anything?"

If they had all that and didn't improve is something we would have to see. I think it is important to point out that they have only had this Thursday night two-hour timeslot for no more than two years. I think that the problem with many fans (especially internet ones) concerning TNA is that they are not growing at the pace that they want TNA to even with the roster that they have. They confuse this desired result of what they want in TNA as being unsuccessful. Obviously, TNA cannot reach a 2.0 rating all of a sudden. I am in the belief that they have to have consistent ratings before they can attract new viewers. Also, I think that it will just take time for them to grow especially since they are relatively new and in a climate where tv viewership is down. Everything is one step at a time. With ratings, I believe but prove me wrong: that they will get a certain rating like a 1.2, keep it consistent for a while with some fluctuations, and then eventually grow a little, and then peak, remain consistent, and then grow again.

 

[Afro-Ameri-Spawn]

But what is the point of getting your name in the mainstream press? Why you want people who are NOT watching your show to know about it? After they learn about TNA, what do they then do? Hmmm?

Once again, you miss the point. The point of getting your name in mainstream pressis the same as buying a superbowl add. It's to get your name out there. You KNOW beforehand that there is no guarantee that it will payoff. It's a chance you take. I'm just saying that TNA maximized the money spent by getting the exposure back almost 20 fold. See the point now?

 

[Afro-Ameri-Spawn]

yout first two questions could be the two stupidest questions ever asked about a television show that is looking to draw new viewers. you should just drop out of this discussion, because your level of knowledge is beyond minimal.

Was this really necessary? We are having an intelligent debate here. We each are entitled to our opinions and are presenting our points in an attempt to sway the other party to see our the side we are presenting. Childish put down are reasons to drop out of the discussion. If you are not contributing or lack the effort to be adult about it, then please do not add your two cents. Thank you.

 

[Afro-Ameri-Spawn]

Getting your name in the mainstream press is free advertising. Exposing your product to a group of people who don't know about it. Why do you do that? To get them to watch it, it's not hard to figure out. Tyson, Rodman, Lauper, LT, Pacman, Malone, Kevin Greene and so on were all used to expose those companies to new fans to try to get them to watch the shows.

But see. Look at your own point. Every name you mentioned was brought in to encourage people to do a one time tune in to a specific event. That was not the case with Pacman. They gambled that by signing him, all of the sports venues and even some of the local news venues would talk about it and give free advertising. But as I stated, with all advertising, you do it for the exposure as there is no guarantee of a payoff.

 

[MrOctober]

Rodman, Tyson, Lauper were not one time events. They like Pacman were used over of a few months. TNA tried to get NFL fans and others curious about Pacman to watch, but like I said people really did not like Pacman, so him in wrestling didn't matter to them

 

[Afro-Ameri-Spawn]

You are completely missing the point. I know that TNA does not have to answer to "Kingdom Come" or the fans since they are a private company and none of us own stock with them.

Well they do have to cater to the majority. The majority watch. The other half complain and still watch. So what are they supposed to do exactly?

The point is that TNA should be doing whatever they can do to make a more marketable product so that the fans that do support will be justified in such support.

I think they do a pretty good job. If you spelled out what you think they need to do, it would make this more progressive than just a rant that goes nowhere. Explain more please. Opinions do help. More info, less anger. It keeps the Disco away. lol

TNA has to not only keep the Spike TV network happy they also have to keep the FANS happy. A TNA that is dropping in the ratings is not one that can keep fans completely happy. After a while certain fans will start to question their support of the product.

And that is where the problem lies. Who has to shoulder the blame for the demographic that TNA gets? Spike TV. No wait, TV in general. Yunger fans are more attracted to trash tv such as reality tv shows and adult oriented cartoons. I mean what is Spike's lead in show? CSI? This show is one of the highest rated shows in the 50+ age demographic. Did you notice that when TNA had The Ultimate Fighter as a lead in, they had a lower aged demographic for slightly lower ratings? The thing is that television, in general, is doing a made scramble to get younger audiences interested in scripted television. People know that wrestling is scripted, which is why younger audiences are flocking towards MMA right now. Wrestling isn't doing anything spontaneous or shocking right now. So younger viewers are tuning out while old faithfuls are the ones staying on board.

Why? Because people do not want to be associated with a LOSER!

Very true. But how do you rate a loser? If a network, as a whole only gets in the mid to low 1's to 2's as ratings, then how can you call one of it's highest rated programs a loser?

TNA can please Spike TV all they want but until they close the gap on WWE some people will still consider them LOSERS!!

They beat ECW and if Smackdown's rating slips anymore, they might beat that too. Still not sure how you can consider a show a loser if other shows on the network get the same or lower ratings.

Now, on budget again I will say that TNA has to learn how to do more with less. If the current people in management can not do this Dixie Carter and/or Jeff Jarrett need to look at bringing in people that can get the job done.

Like who? Indy wrestlers who people don't know and could care less about? Former wrestling writers who show nothing but disdain for wrestling right now? I hear you people say to bring in Bischoff or to bring in Heyman, but do you know what these people think of wrestling right now? Do you even read what they write or say? No, you go off of their former genius as the mark by which you judge them. These people are washed up and could care less about writing for wrestling right now. And the indy guys would be harder to get over than the TNA originals. TNA needs to keep doing the mix that they are doing by bringing the originals along slowly to see what kind of reaction they get. Development is hard. They are doing well to test the waters a little at a time.

On "lower budget" .. TNA should look more to the fans to help out in certain areas. 1 area for example is in their online presence. The TNA website is a joke! One idea to help improve this would be to have a contest to see which fan can create the best "fan" related website. The winner of the competition to become the new TNA site designer.

Well for one, if you want to look as if you are on the same level as WWE, then you CAN'T have fans working on your site. That's not an option. It needs to be better, but not fan based.

As it is right now there is no reason for fans to even go to tnawrestling.com. There is no "in house" fan forum or chatroom, there is no "in house" video library, and there are no "must read" articles posted there. The only thing you get from going to the website is a bunch of "buy this - buy this" advertising.

Chatrooms are fads. That's why there are forums like this. There is no need to have a chat room if nobody is there. The only people who use chat rooms these days, regularly, are online predators. So nope. No go.

If TNA wants people to buy things on their website they have to 1st draw them there with quality "online" entertainment or at least a fan community.
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Fan communities are passe. They are thing of the past. TNA Mobile is more of an outlet to fans and doesn't require you to be on a computer. Get with the times man. Get with the times.

 

[Deexter Jorgan]

Its not money that is stopping TNA, its the fact that the company is overshadowing its own brand by trying to be the third brand of the WWE

TNA has hired alot of Ex - WWE talent who where let go for various reasons including drugs, for example Kurt angle who recently had an episode infront of his wife which was so bad that Tomko had to tell her he was working people....

The other Problem is the announce Team, the fact that they are atrocious to say the least, they make adamlee and Tazz seem like JR and the King, and that is saying something, they don't mesh and are soo atrocious that they make me turn the volume off so that i can just watch the action in the ring, good commentary compliments the story in the ring, without it the match looks stupid!!!

Advertising is another thing but IMO is a bare minimal compared to what the WWE does, the problem is that Panda energy TNA'S parent company is a multi billion dollar company and that TNA is only getting a small percentage of what Panda energy is putting in

Booking, Russo sucks just isnt the word, the fact that TNA has focused on comedy skits and has practically made the show the kurt angle hour more then anything else is what turns people off the product, TNA was supposed to be different but they just use overused senseless booking to make there product work and IMO that is not whats going to bring the crowd in

Conclusion: You want to fix TNA, fix these three things, and maybe they can establish themselves as an entity that shows an alternative rather then a bad copy of the wwe product

 

[Fizzy]

bullshit money is not the problem they dont have enough exposure thts the problem they need much more get a 2nd show on a different network have jarret return get at least a few commercials and tv deals in other countries money may play some roll but its not the main reason they arent on wwes lvl

 

[matt4]

They need to get rid of joe,and all the washed-up WWE wrestlers.They need a champ that can make his opponent look good(like Flair).Joe cannot and will not make anyone look good,he refuses to sell anything,he's aweful.AJ is the only one who should be the champion and face of TNA.

 

[Kfabe]

yout first two questions could be the two stupidest questions ever asked about a television show that is looking to draw new viewers. you should just drop out of this discussion, because your level of knowledge is beyond minimal.

I'm glad you said that because if it would have been me I would have had certain people on here running to the admins to tell on me like they probably still do with their mummy's.

The whole point of media publicity (good or bad) is to get your product out to potential new fans.

I have took a step back from being a fan, sat and really dissected an Impact show just to try and see what other people complain about. And without any BIAS at all I can genuinely say that Impact is a very good show. As good as WWE's shows, just in a different way and feel. It is an alternative which is great for the business.
Point is that the ratings is not down to the product being bad, so it must be due to knowledge of the promotion.

I don't know anything about what the promotion for TNA is like in America so decline to comment, but as for the UK, TNA get a fairly good deal. They are on a pretty popular channel (which is generally watched by the male 18+ demographic), the channel has 2 sister stations and they air TNA commercials throughout the day, every day. They are followed and commented on by one of THE most popular daily papers in the UK (The Sun), again who's main audience is the male 18+ demographic.
And the result is that from what I see and hear from people, TNA is massive over here. It is not far behind WWE at all. The TNA action figures are now also starting to spring up in massive retail stores such as Toys R Us, whereas before they were limited to side street comic book/nerd shops.
THAT is the point off publicity.

I've also heard that in Australia, TNA actually outdo WWE in ratings (I have no idea whether that's true as I don't know how to check).

If anyone knows where to find them I would love to know the ratings for WWE and TNA over here in the UK so we could see what the influence of publicity has done competition wise.
(hint, hint Disco....)

 

[Slack]

I think TNA is doing most stuff right. There are things that TNA does that I don't like, like the Sharkboy and Black Machismo imitation things. But that is me, I never liked the billionaire ted skits the WWE use to do. But they are getting their name out there and getting more known.

Now folks want to say how bringing in Jones was a failure. How was it a failure? Because you didn't see a huge jump in the ratings? And if you say Jones was a failure, then you have to say the same thing about Mayweather and K-Fed. Celebrities don't always mean ratings. But what if those stunts got 1 more viewer, then guess what, that's one more viewer. And if that one viewer gets hooked on the product, then he might tell another person and maybe that person will get hooked. Now that one viewer isn't going to make a huge immediate impact on the ratings, but it can slowly

Now the ratings of RAW are going up because they are bringing in some excitement into the product, and I believe TNA is doing the same thing. For example, I'm interested in seeing where Lethal/Dutt is going to go. And I'm interested in seeing the feud between LAX and Beer Money, and I believe that could be similar to the NWA Pro's Los Luchas/Real American Heroes feud. And they are building up to a Joe vs Nash match. I mean I'm really enjoying the direction TNA is taking

And I believe I read this on wrestlezone.com, isn't TNA planning on bringing another tv show onto Spike, the Spin Cycle. Now I watch that on the internet and I like it. And I'll admit that I popped like crazy when Alex Shelley mentioned Sonny Siaki, who wrestles every week down here in Great Championship Wrestling.

And I do believe that wrestling is making a slow comeback into the mainstream. The NWA's 60th anniversary show drew over 3000, folks. Yeah I know that the majority were free tickets, but thanks to sponsorships and stuff, it turned out to be very good for NWA. Great Championship Wrestling draws weekly crowds of around 250-300 folks. Anarchy in Cornelia, GA draws maybe an average of 200 folks every two weeks, and the times they went to bigger places, they drew like 500-600 folks. Wrestling is slowly getting back. Just give it time. Wrestling goes up and down. It will be extremely popular for a while, then go down, then back up, then down, then up, then down. Well you get the point.

Don't forget, TNA has only been around for 6 years and they have made alot of progress, just give it more time. I don't know if they'll compete with the WWE like WCW did, but they'll be a strong #2.

 

[absent]

if you gave me a million bucks to make a movie as opposed to 5 million bucks, would you expect to get the same amount of viewership for both budgets?

I guess what people on this board might be hoping for is TNA to pull off some kind of Blair Witch type fluke. That's got very little to do with budgets and more to do with being in the right place, at the right time, with the right line.

Some might argue that TNA has been in the right place, at the right time, but then fluffed the line.

 

[BSE Wrestling]

I think TNA is doing what needs to be done right now. Spike TV has an international subscription base and continues to grow with it's UFC programming. If TNA were to build on it's continued touring schedule, with Impact on the road, the audience will grow. However, the limited budget does hamper the ultimate goal of becoming a complete touring company.

Did you guys notice the dates listed on this week's episode of Impact? They announced that TNA will be in TX on September 15th. Actually, they are on the road the entire week after No Surrender, in Canada. Usually those are their Impact tapings in Orlando. Is it a sign of what is to come for TNA. More shows, smarter touring... the numbers will increase in time.

 

[Mark78]

To be honest it wouldn't surpise me if they carry Impact on the road in 09. I think TNA will wait and see how they do on thier 2nd tour of England first. TNA I know for sure is turning a profit, the video game will help them greatly. Plus they're sign new deals every week with new marketing companies. I think TNA will be fine Jarrett is running TNA simliar to how his father ran Memphis Wrestling.

 

[finoj05]

I like how Glenn refers to Pacman as free advertising, when he was paid very well for the time he spent in TNA and for the zero matches he wrestled. He did nothing for TNA, though it wasn't free. TNA could have gained more viewers by running 30 seconds ads on ESPN. The demographic barely watched CNN and FOX. While its nice to get your name mentioned on there, its not worth spending quality TV time and diminishing a tag title just so you can get "TNA Wrestling" mentioned in a sentence on Fox Sports News or something. There are better ways of getting the word out to the demographic. Also Pacman winning a tag title and not being able to actively compete was the dumbest thing i have ever seen. What good came out of that? Was the thousands of dollars spent worth it so TNA can be mentioned a couple times on news networks?

Glenn, come on, even you should know that Pacman was in principle, a good idea but it didn't do much for the company considering the TV time and money they put into it. If he'd had wrestled, maybe, but even then, i don't know how much good it did. Did numbers go up during his segments? Did he sell merchandise? Did he sell PPVs? Maybe a few. But i think, in the big picture, Pacman was not worth the trouble in the end.