It was announced on Wednesday that TNA's Impact Wrestling is moving to the Destination America channel in the United States. Impact had previously aired on Spike TV from 2005. Their deal was up this year and Spike chose not to renew. That left TNA without a television home in the US, so there were concerns about their future. Could they survive and in what capacity? What this news means is they will be on television in the US for at least two more years, so the company isn't going away. Here's some key info from their press release earlier today: "Discovery Communications announced today that it has signed a multi-year deal with TNA (Total Nonstop Action) IMPACT WRESTLING to bring the popular league to homes nationwide on Destination America, the only network dedicated to celebrating the people, places and stories of the United States. Destination America officially enters the ring with its first world premiere of IMPACT WRESTLING in January 2015. The series features some of the biggest names in professional wrestling, including Jeff Hardy, Bobby Roode, Kurt Angle, Bobby Lashley and Gail Kim. The partnership includes the U.S. premieres of additional TNA WRESTLING series and specials and provides Discovery Communications with international broadcasting rights in select regions, to be announced at a later date." The key thing there is that in addition to airing Impact Wrestling on Wednesday Nights, they will also air specials that TNA produces. Those could be two or three hour events that are like PPVs or perhaps programming centering on "best of" types of matches. TNA President commented that the company is excited about the deal: We are very excited about Destination America being the new network for IMPACT WRESTLING and the partnership with Discovery Communications both domestically and across the globe. Their commitment to promote and grow our brand in innovative and compelling ways was instrumental in knowing we had found the right home. Together we will create an experience that takes our fans on a new journey that will push the envelope of technology, including where we take our cameras, going deeper into our superstars lives and showing the reality of what it takes to create a weekly professional wrestling show, all while showcasing the very best male and female athletes in the world. There are two ways to look at the deal: 1) It's great that TNA found a home. Impact has gone down in viewers consistently for the last year and there was concern that the company was going to die. With TNA cutting costs all across the board while also eliminating live events completely, they would have barely been able to survive without a US TV deal. It's good that the talented wrestlers will be able to wrestle regularly on television. Impact's quality of shows has actually been pretty good in the last few months although a lot of fans have stopped watching due to frustrations with the product. Being off TV for nearly two months is going to be a challenge in terms of getting viewers to come back to them. 2) Destination America is not a big channel. It's available in about 50 million US homes, which is around half of what Spike TV is available to. They could put all the spin on it they want, but when you go to a channel that is only available to half of your potential audience that's not a good thing. Impact was being watched by about 1.3 million people weekly in the US a few years ago. That number dropped down to about 800,000 people. Cut that in half just because of the penetration that this channel has and they might get about 400,000 viewers weekly. The channel also isn't available here in Canada the way Spike was, so that's a market that will miss out. Perhaps they can find a channel to carry it in Canada. They do have deals in place already in other markets including the United Kingdom. To sum it up, it's great that they have a home. However, they are going to a much smaller network, likely getting paid significantly less to produce their shows and it may be difficult for them to grow at all. They had to take the offer because there likely weren't better deals on the table. Tonight is the last new episode of Impact that will air on Spike TV. They have tapings scheduled in New York City in early January and those episodes will start airing on Wednesdays on Destination America. What do you think about this news? Let us know in the comments below.
John wrote at WhatCulture from December 2013 to December 2015. It was fun, but it's over for now. Follow him on Twitter @johnreport. You can also send an email to mrjohncanton@gmail.com with any questions or comments as well.
