New Column: Destination: Hope

Killjoy says:

There’s stuff that people overlook about the deal. Good and bad. First off, even though the channel is accessible to 50% of US homes, that doesn’t mean they actually have the needed package to access it. Not only that, but it doesn’t mean TNA viewership will take a 50% slice. If they even make it to %15 of what they did in Spike, that’s a miracle. No matter how loyal TNA fan’s can be, it’s a far smaller network with a demographic that doesn’t watch wrestling.

On the good side, it seems TNA got this deal because Discovery saw how huge an impact Lucha Underground had on El Rey Network. It’s debut only got 8000 viewers but it was the network’s #2 show of the week. The second week got 29,000 viewers. Meaning it blew the network up and did it’s job of bringing in new viewers to El Rey. DestAm is looking for the same thing. For Impact to bring new viewers and it’s already showing. Brian Alvarez mentioned that DestAm’s Twitter has minimal Twitter followers but the number went up a good few thousands today with the news of TNA signing. Meaning they’re already feeling the boost. Now all TNA has to do is deliver. Ignore their ratings not even being 0.6. They need to deliver a product that makes fans that can’t access it to demand the network. Then DestAm will provide the extra programming. Maybe even help create live Sunday specials to work as PPV shows. And promote it too.

This deal is great for DestAm and can be a good one for TNA to expand. It’s just gonna be at the cost of their ratings. If everyone can accept that and fix up their act, TNA can have a brighter tomorrow.