TNA are doing the right thing by taking Impact on the road. They need to let people know they are there and what talent they have. The marketing side of TNA is terrible, that really is their biggest problem. I think if they brought in John Cena their ratings would only hover around the 2.0 mark. I suppose it depends what is it that TNA wants to do. Are they happy with their current ratings, do they want to get a 2.0 everyweek, do they want to beat WWE in the ratings? Well named talent is gonna get you so far but the only way your gonna get millions more to watch is by letting them know your there.

Paul Heyman would ruin TNA. TNA from it's faults upwards is really what a pro wrestling company should be. It has characters, it has storylines, it has wrestling, it is mature, no age group is exlcuded, everyone can watch it. He really would have fired anyone over the age of 40 and turned it into something people wouldn't watch. That is why there are indie wrestling companies. That's why the heavy metal section at the record store is hidden away in a little corner. That's why the extra large condoms for the larger man are on a different shelf from the 3 in a pack standard durex ones. These things exist that way because only a small portion of people buy them. They don't appeal to the masses so it wouldn't work for TNA if Paul Heyman came in. Millions watch WWE because it is WWE. They don't watch because their gripped by the thrilling TV they provide. It's no different than a woman watching all the soap. It's just force of habit. You watch it because you've always watched it and it's there. You get into a routine.

The second half is interesting, the first half is stupid.

'Custody of children' as a prize for a winning a wrestling match?

You're supposed to suspend your disbelief when watching wrestling, but that takes it too far and insults your intelligence. What next, 'winner of the next match wins a trip to the moon'?!

You've got to have a degree of believability in stips, otherwise it is pointless.

I really disagree with that. WWE does great business and they're centred around youth. WWE caught fire in the late 1990s due to new young stars being showcased.

I'd wager that Paul Heyman could create a TNA that draws more than a 1.3 each week, that draws a lot better on the road than it currently does, and would achieve higher buyrates than their current very low ones. New concepts, new ideas, new talent, and new stars attract NEW fans, and keep old ones. The idea that the current set of old stars are attracting a certain group of fans that you'd lose if you didn't have the old stars is a total fallacy - as TNA is doing the same ratings now with Hogan, Bischoff, Flair, RVD, Hardys, Anderson, Angle as they were doing in MAY 2006, before they'd even signed all those people. A large majority of the people who consistently watch TNA currently would, quite frankly, watch anything. It's the thousands/millions that aren't watching that Heyman could potentially bring back.

Remember Heyman - the man whose ECW concept inspired the WWE Attitude era, with many of his concepts ripped off, and many of his ECW stars and gimmicks signed away. The man who wrote a lot of great Smackdown tv 2002-2005, pushing the likes of Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio and Brock Lesnar to the top. The man who booked OVW for a year, and pushed for CM Punk to be brought into WWE without any alterations to his gimmick, look or name. The guy is a visionary. Not so good businessman, but massively talented creative guy with a finger on the pulse for new ideas and new people that catch fire.

I'd take Heyman over Russo or anyone else in TNA creative any day of the week, and he certainly wouldn't ruin TNA.

TNA Impact was doing a regular 0.9 in the Saturday night at 11pm timeslot, with just the originals + Christian and Team 3D.

The company has made so many obvious mistakes. Some were due to good intentions, others due to pure naivety. They tried to build a national, rounded wrestling promotion off a bunch of 40 - 50 year olds, most of whom didn't work live events. They constantly pushed these veterans over everybody except for AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Whereas most realised their best role was the odd temporary stint, or as 100% manager. They introduced the second biggest babyface of 2009 as a shock debut opposite Homicide! Then they brought in Flair without any hype on the same show. RVD was another wasted shock debut, beat down by Sting as if he was a jobber in a revived feud from 1997. Going head to head with Raw while emanating from a theme park didn't help their momentum either.

Sting is like the Undertaker of TNA. A very popular iconic character the fans loved. Yet they turned him heel twice. Then they turned another popular babyface loved by the lucrative kids/female demographic.

The company is obsessed with "shade of grey" (aka tweeners), taking it to new heights by booking at least 25 heel turns in 2010. This format proved profitable once (1998 - 1999), whereas the simplistic face/heel divide still works after 60 years. Then there are the now glaringly predictable swerves... Even the TNA name is perhaps too gimmicky to promote a national wrestling promotion under. They had the legendary NWA name licensed until 2014; a name very familar to American males over the age of 30.

That is without the marketing issues, the failure to advertise houseshows and Spike TV being weaker than many other basic cable channels.

I noticed that Genesis next Wednesday is only scheduled for 3 hours.

That means either they will show it without commericals (unlikely) or edit the PPV to fit in the timeslot with commercials, like Sky used to do with WWE PPV's.

According to Kurt Angle's Twitter.

"Up until 2-3 days before the Rumble, Booker and Kev were signed with TNA. They asked for their release"

So TNA were nice enough to grant them a release but why resign with TNA if they were gonna go to WWE? I guess money does talk.

BS.
Booker hasn't been in TNA since October '09 and has been talking with WWE since last summer at least (there were already rumors at the time that the two sides were talking). As a matter of fact, he was offered a contract by a company that was supposed to start in Florida, with a national tv deal, but nothing came out of that (they were saying Booker signed a deal with them, which wouldn't have been possible if he was under contract with TNA). Nash is a different story, however he wasn't under contract with TNA and they were talking, but he didn't sign anything and he wasn't granted any release.

True,but the one thing TNA do have is Bob Carter multi millionaire,invest in advertising and production make it look like it could take on WWE.Not just a theme park attraction.
Production is where TNA fail big time.

I concur

I still think shitting on TNA's history by removing the 6 sided ring and devalueing some of the championship divisions hasn't helped.

Remember the Top 10? What happened there. That faded out pretty quickly and quietly. It was implemented just plain wrong.

I have said it before EVER PPV should be outside the impact zone on should be done on a budget of more than $1000.

I know,with Lockdown coming up the six sides of steel did have a ring to it.

That was largely the case, however there were several occasions when they scored much higher - in 2006: Jan 28th did a 1.1, April 13th did a 1.1, from May 11th to June 8th they had a run of 5 shows that did a 1.0 or more, including the May 25th show that did a 1.2. They did 1.1 twice and a 1.0 in late June/early July.

All of this, achieved before they signed Angle or any of the big names (Angle was announced as signed on Sept 24 - they were in the midst of a 0.8/0.9 slump and Angle didn't have ANY effect on the rating at all - the first 1.0 rating achieved after his signing came 2 months later, on Nov 16).

The point is, the highly expensive big names they have signed have meant nothing for ratings; the show averaged 0.9 back then due to a crap timeslot, as shown by the larger ratings they popped, usually when their product improved for a few weeks.

http://100megsfree4.com/wiawrestling.../impactrat.htm

The problem with TNA has never been about the talent, but about how they were utilised and the whole ideology of the product, how it is presented and the creative aspect of the show.

Has it come on on time and how does it look?

Well it's on. Inane Jeff Hardy promo at the moment.

Picture looks very very soft.

Can't comment on motion artifacts yet as of 20 minutes - theres been no actual wrestling.

Just as slow paced as it was. Only a month and I'd actually forgotten about that.

Edit: Seems quite a good bit-rate. Not bad.

Hopefully Sky will launch an HD version of Challenge at some point.

Does the picture look zoomed in to anyone else? I know its wide-screen but just looks a tad zoomed in.

I thought that too. It looks in proportion, but the framing makes it feel as if it's cropped.

On my widescreen TV there are black bars at either side of the screen. I think they call that ratio 14:9.

Is there much demand for watching old episodes of Bullseye in high definition?

Sky are planning to devote a block of programming on Challenge aimed at males. TNA is part of that so they could end up with programming which is filmed in HD.

Come to think of it, i wonder if Challenge defaults to 14:9 due to its general old content.


BTW, off topic, but i've just posted an interesting link in the music production thread you started the other day.

Unless it is a 16:9 image and their broadcasting it in 4:3 or 14:9 so it still looks normal on your TV but the logo is still in the top corner and it's obviously squashed a little bit.


I'll check it out.

Looked fine to me.

On my Sky + box, I used Services - System Set Up - Picture Settings - 16:9 though.

Challenge are broadcasting the show in widescreen.