TNA iMPACT!

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Image:TNA iMPACT!.gif

TNA iMPACT! is a professional wrestling television program produced by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). It currently airs on Spike TV in the United States, on Eurosport and The Wrestling Channel throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, in Canada on TSN, and on RDS in Quebec (in French).

Contents

History

The accepted business model for a profitable professional wrestling company since the late 1980s is based on a weekly television program and a monthly, bimonthly or trimonthly pay-per-view, with the latter accounting for a greater share of revenue and, thus, heavily advertised via the former. This model was developed and standardised by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and was in turn adopted by their chief competitor throughout the 1990s, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), although displays of ego and arrogance saw WCW and the WWF compete fiercely over television ratings, with potentially lucrative matches broadcast on free television in order to "spike ratings" rather than saved for a pay-per-view.

Total Nonstop Action was formed in May 2002, announcing what was then an unorthodox and untested business strategy. TNA would air a weekly two hour pay-per-view priced at $9.95, without a complementary television program. This was in stark contrast to the dominant wrestling company, World Wrestling Entertainment, who aired a monthly pay-per-view priced at $34.95, in addition to five hours of original programming and several hours of syndicated archive footage programming a week. TNA aired their first pay-per-view on June 19.

TNA faced high production costs, and had calculated that they needed approximately 50,000 pay-per-view purchases (or "buys") a week in order to break even. However, Dave Meltzer (a prominent professional wrestling journalist) reported that actual weekly purchases were in the range of 5,000 to 15,000.

In May 2004 TNA announced that they had negotiated a television deal with Fox Sports Net (FSN). TNA would pay FSN $30,000 a week (according to TNA matchmaker Scott D'Amore) in exchange for a one hour timeslot on Fridays between 3:00pm and 4:00pm in most markets. TNA began taping TNA iMPACT! on Tuesdays in Soundstage 21 at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, and aired the first episode on on June 4, 2004. iMPACT! was also syndicated throughout Canada (on TSN and RDS), Europe (on The Wrestling Channel and Eurosport) and Asia (on ESPN Star Sports), to a total of 118 countries.

TNA ceased their weekly pay-per-views on September 8, 2004 after 111 consecutive weeks. On Sunday November 7, 2004, TNA held their first monthly three hour pay-per-view, Victory Road. In December 2004, iMPACT! was moved to a 4:00pm to 5:00pm timeslot.

TNA's contract with FSN expired in May 2005, and was not renegotiated, with the last episode airing on May 27, 2005. The series as a whole had averaged a 0.2 household rating. TNA was left with no television deal and, ergo, no means of promoting their monthly pay-per-views (although iMPACT! did continue to air on certain regional networks). On July 1 TNA began streaming iMPACT! from their website via RealPlayer, in addition to enabling downloads via BitTorrent. To save on production costs, four hours of iMPACT! were recorded in a day and made available throughout the subsequent month.

At the same time, TNA began seeking a more profitable television outlet. TNA first began negotiations with Superstation WGN, with a proposed Monday evening timeslot running parallel to WWE RAW, but they could not come to an agreement. TNA then began negotiations with Spike TV for a Saturday night timeslot, a traditional wrestling timeslot dating back to the days of the Clash of Champions and the Saturday Night's Main Event. On July 21, TNA announced that they had secured a deal with Spike TV, and would begin airing iMPACT! on October 1, 2005.

iMPACT! airs at 11:00pm EST on Saturdays, the former timeslot of WWE Velocity, as part of Spike TV's Slammin' Saturday Night block (which also includes The Ultimate Fighter), and is repeated on Monday evenings at 12:00am, immediately after WWE RAW. Beginning on September 27, TNA will tape two episodes every other Tuesday, airing them on the subsequent Saturday. They are no longer paying for the timeslot, though Spike TV will control their advertising revenue.

iMPACT! is still aired in syndication on some local TV channels, including FSN's Florida affiliate in a separate short-term contract.

Ratings (where available)

October 1 0.8
October 8 0.82
October 15 0.84
October 22 0.9

Content

iMPACT! generally features between three and five matches in the space of the hour, as well as interviews and angles. When iMPACT! was on FOX Sports Net, most matches had a time limit, normally ten minutes, and in the event of a time limit draw the winner was determined by the TNA Championship Committee, a group consisting of three veteran wrestlers. Since being dropped from FSN, iMPACT! has discarded the time limit concept, though they still have between three and five matches per show.

Commentators

Image:West-and-tenay.jpg

Former World Championship Wrestling employee Mike Tenay, dubbed "The Professor" due to his vast knowledge of wrestling trivia, is the iMPACT! play-by-play commentator. The color analyst is Don West, the former host of The Sports Collectible Show. Spanish commentary is provided by Armando Quintero and "Moody" Jack Melendez. The French language version of iMPACT! on RDS is hosted (from a studio) by Marc Blondin and Pierre-Carl Ouellette. iMPACT! on Eurosport is hosted by Marc Chavet and Richard Sawicka-Parr.

See also

References

External links

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Total Nonstop Action Wrestling iMPACT! (2005)
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

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