Impact been live will help ratings improve, theres always a big diffference from taped to live.

Impact could see a 1.3 or 1.4 with a live show on thursday. Promotion is the key though

Being at bigger arenas may help. Being live is a mute point.

In the age of the internet it's far from a moot point. The number of people who merely read Impact spoilers each week and then pass judgment on the program is staggering.

Let me ask you a question - if Smackdown was live every week instead of taped, do you think it's ratings would increase?

It is a moot point; TNA have done market research showing your casual Spike viewer- which is most of the audience- knows no difference between live and taped shows, even when TNA constantly has the announcers say it's live on the live ones.

(This came out shortly after Paul Heyman had his meeting with Spike, so it's likely he's the source.)

Bloody useless market research if they only looked at TNA's current audience - proper market research would have looked at TNA's potential audience and the reasons why they don't watch it. I don't think live tapings are the holy grail for TNA but I agree with the earlier poster that a good live show could draw a 1.3-1.4.

She's cute. That picture is one bad one. Every person on this planet has at least one bad picture, in amongst the good.

This?
Or this?

I've always had a slight thing for gothic birds though. This screen cap leaves a LOT to the imagination though.

So you'd be fine as long as you never had to look at her face-on?

As far as Goth divas go, she's no Daffney.

Being anywhere other than the Impact zone would help ..

I know there's a financial implication but the atmosphere in that "arena" really tends to kill most of the shows they put on there.

how many matches have been wrestled in near silence?

I think the good live show drawing a higher audience argument a lot of the time is more to do with TNA building up to live shows as tv specials rather than simply being live.


The Impact Zone I think has become a bigger negative for the product over the last number of years. It does look rinky dink in comparison to WWE. Understandable considering the financial resources TNA have. Also taping 4 hours of tv in one night does effect the crowd reaction. Fans get tired watching that amount in one go.

It's 2 hours in a night - tapings are on Monday and Tuesday. Although Xplosion probably adds on another 45 minutes.

Sorry, I was thinking about the previous setup a while back.

I suppose thats even worse than what I was suggesting. If you can't keep fans interested for what is the usual length of a PPV.

I'm not as big a critic of the Impact Zone as some although I do think them going on the road now and again is a good idea. Mix that in with the odd live episode (in the Impact Zone or otherwise) and I think the product would be freshened up straight away.

Also when it comes to pay-per-views at the Impact Zone they should change the look of the place, make it look like an important show and not just a three hour Impact.

The fans are usually into the matches, but it's the segments that confuse them because of Russo's booking style. Swerves are hard enough for fans to keep track of, nevermind themepark day trippers.

I find the PPV audience is usually pretty into the show. The last PPV they had away from the Impact Zone - Lockdown - had a terrible audience, whilst the Impact Zone PPVs have had much better reactions.

I agree with decemberboy though that they need to spice up the look of the IZ for PPV's. Presentation is a major weak point for TNA.

It is difficult to change up the set for PPV's in the Impact Zone. I think the space is fairly restrictive.

I'm not sure how long they take to tape Impact, i know WWE take breaks during the taping of Smackdown rather than just filming every segment one after the other. I know a lot of the pretapes you see on Impact Wrestling are not shown to the audience in the Impact Zone.

I don't know about recently, but Impact used to be taped out of order which made it more confusing for the fans to follow.

If they keep the taping schedule the way it is now then the week they tape outside the Impact Zone is the week they are due to tape more episodes so they could go live on Thursday, start taping at 7pm and broadcast on a tape delay or infact just continue as normal and have the episode they tape on the Thursday air the following week.

I still don't mind her. That's just me though. Less competition from you lot. :P


*Bows*


Financially, I think they'll be fine. Sure, they'll probably make a loss on each show, but merchandise on the road, charging for tickets and maybe a little help from Spike on production, plus the programme itself will look ten times better AND get the name out.

From WrestlingObserver.com

Maybe they will just do 1 a month to start off with.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Any word yet on buyrates for Destination X? Curious to see whether the IWC actually bothered to buy it after complaining for years about the X-Division not being focused on.

Well the numbers will speak for themselves if they ever get released or the content of TNA in the coming months will reveal all if they start putting more focus on the X Division.

Just saw on Twitter that the latest viewing figures for Impact on Challenge were 236,000, a new UKTV record and more than RAW and Smackdown combined...and the Saturday replay did 126,000!

Very impressive numbers indeed, X-Division works!

Those are huge figures, especially for the repeat aswell!

Considering the low normal levels, anything above 20k would probably be considered a win.

I suppose we will have to wait and see the spoilers to see if TNA plans a new era with the X Division.