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TNA News
TNA News: TNA Impact draws second largest viewership, but surprising quarter hour ups and downs Mar 1, 2008 - 3:25:16 PM
TNA Impact on Thursday drew a 1.0 rating (1.0475, which does not round up to 1.1), which is down, but with increased viewership overall on cable television, it was good enough for the second biggest audience to date with 1.6 million viewers on average.
As usual, lately, the quarter hour ratings pattern did not reflect well on the booking of the show, with a start of 1.08 for Q1, followed by three straight audience drops to a 1.02 in Q4. For the first time in weeks, they began hour two with content rather than a commercial, and it paid off with a surge to 1.12 to start hour two. However, it crashed during the Eric Young vs. James Storm drinking title match, then popped once again for the women's match all the way to a show-high of 1.14. In the surprise of the night, Kevin Nash's first-ever singles match against Kurt Angle with a number of top TNA stars at ringside drew a disappointing 1.02 rating, tied for lowest of the entire show.
Keller Analysis: The drop for the main event is difficult to explain, because with A.J. Styles, Tomko, Samoa Joe, and Christian all involved, it's not as if just Angle and Nash had to carry it alone. Nash vs. Angle should have been a PPV match build up for weeks on TV so it felt important. By putting it on TV instead, it actually diminiished the perceived value of the match as not being PPV-worthy. TNA management needs to realize that they have something special with their women's division and to start treating it as main event material, not mid-show filler.
Check out Jason Powell's TNA Impact Hitlist for his signature analysis of this week's show.
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