Welp they gave it a (short) whirl. Vince is probably (rightfully) laughing his ass off. Raws ratings have been down 10% from last year so you wonder how much of the audience they'll pick up now that Impact is moving back to Thursday's.
As a follow-up to my previous post, Dixie Carter cracks me up. I'm not so sure how it helps your company when your "major announcement" is that you are essentially surrendering to the competition.
Well, it was a disaster, and a nearly unmitigated one at that. Not only did their rating just not hold up, but they basically ceded control of their own viewership over to McMahon -- what TNA was showing didn't affect their own ratings nearly as much as what WWE was showing.
Their was no good way out of this.
--K
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If they had gone 6 months, were still struggling in the ratings, and seeing Monday Night Football coming over the horizon at them, I could see them moving back to Thursday and at least having some pride in taking a chance at going at RAW. Bailing out after 6 weeks shows the company has no long term plan.
Bailing out after 6 weeks absolutely shows the company has no long term plan. You say that like you're surprised. This whole foray has been an adventure in self-immolation. What I take away from this move is that they (Would that be Dixie & her daddy's money?) were not actually deliberately trying to flush the whole thing into one giant business loss. (i.e. See the plot basis for Slapshot.) It really was just a matter of a very small quantity of chimpanzees typing on a couple of Windows computers.
For anyone who is interested in TNA doing other than flaming out in a blaze of stupidity, reversing this position is the best you could hope for. Now, Dixie needs to try to figure out how to back out of as much of the damage that's been done. If they were bright, which we've now established that they're anything other than, there is a way to spin this around as a positive.
Surrendering & "tail between legs" is a better strategy than outright failure. Lots of businesses screw over a lot of people based on TPTB continuing to run their ego trips past the point of no return.
I actually liked it on Monday nights until they stopped showing actual matches. I try to squeeze as much into Monday night tv watching as possible so TNA on Monday was great for me. I probably won't follow this show to Thursday night, at least not how it looks right now.
Originally posted by emmaBailing out after 6 weeks absolutely shows the company has no long term plan. You say that like you're surprised. This whole foray has been an adventure in self-immolation. What I take away from this move is that they (Would that be Dixie & her daddy's money?) were not actually deliberately trying to flush the whole thing into one giant business loss. (i.e. See the plot basis for Slapshot.) It really was just a matter of a very small quantity of chimpanzees typing on a couple of Windows computers.
For anyone who is interested in TNA doing other than flaming out in a blaze of stupidity, reversing this position is the best you could hope for. Now, Dixie needs to try to figure out how to back out of as much of the damage that's been done. If they were bright, which we've now established that they're anything other than, there is a way to spin this around as a positive.
Surrendering & "tail between legs" is a better strategy than outright failure. Lots of businesses screw over a lot of people based on TPTB continuing to run their ego trips past the point of no return.
While I agree it was questionable to go to Monday nights to begin with, I imagine that the move back to Thursday night was more of a SpikeTV decision rather then a flat-out TNA Wrestling decision.
The "major announcement" wording was just TNA Wrestling putting in through the Spin Machine (though I wouldn't have used it to hype a major announcement on live television when all that happened was the announcement being read by the commentators from a press release at the beginning of the show).
Regarding the move to the Thursday time slot, TNA President Dixie Carter added: “Our fans made it clear that they preferred the Thursday night time period. By moving to Thursdays,” this is a win/win opportunity for both TNA and the fans. We are looking forward to delivering what the fans are asking for!"
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One of the funniest spin lines ever!! Our fans made it clear by the .5 we did in the ratings...yep..nicely done. How much longer does Hogan and Bischoff have before they are in the next TNA presser about being removed? End of the year?
Like others have said, I bet Spike forced the move. TNA is also ditching the live shows. I don't think Vince McMahon saw them as a threat but he sort of has to be laughing about it.