-- First Hour Breakdown
-- Second Hour Breakdown
-- Third Hour Breakdown

By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

After breaking down each individual hour on a minute-by-minute basis, we can make some conclusions on which main players and memorable segments drew audiences throughout the live three-hour Impact. Who kept viewers locked and who pushed viewers to their remote control?

WINNER: Hulk Hogan's debut

TNA Impact was centered on Hulk Hogan, who drew 3.05 million viewers when he walked out to the Impact Zone. After milking the applause, the overall show peaked with 3.36 million against the first minute of WWE Raw at 9:00 p.m.

Hogan's segment overall averaged 3.11 million viewers from 8:57 to 9:12 p.m. That included a spike of 3.22 million viewers at 9:07 p.m. when Eric Bischoff made his TNA on-air debut.

By the end of the segment, viewers were turning over to WWE Raw for the Bret Hart-Shawn Michaels confrontation or seeking other programming. At 9:10 p.m., Impact hit 3.04 million viewers. At 9:11 p.m., it was 2.82 million. At 9:12 p.m., it was 2.77 million. At 9:13 p.m. when Impact went to commercial, it was 1.80 million viewers.

In that four-minute stretch from 9:10 to 9:14 as Hogan's segment wrapped up and Hart-Michaels reached its climax, TNA lost 41.0 percent of its audience.

Conclusion: From the moment Hogan walked out (3.05 million) until the end of his segment (2.77 million), TNA lost 9.0 percent of its audience. I would argue that's strong retention considering WWE Raw was delivering Hart and Michaels for the first time in the same ring in 12 years. That's reflected in WWE Raw scoring a 3.7 first quarter-hour rating when WWE would have expected at least a 4.0 rating for delivering a moment that big.

LOSERS: Kong & Hamada vs. Sarita & Taylor Wilde

The minute-by-minute numbers reveal that TNA had a captive audience immediately after the Hogan skit aired. TNA missed an opportunity to keep their audience when they could have saved a big singles match or another surprise appearance for after Hogan's appearance and really put a dent in TNA's audience.

At 9:12 p.m., the Hogan debut concluded with 2.77 million viewers. At 9:17 p.m., the audience was back up to 2.82 million viewers. WWE was on commercial at this point following Hart-Michaels, but then Hamada & Kong vs. Sarita & Wilde led to a steady decline in the ratings.

The ten-minute Knockouts Tag Title match started at 9:17 p.m. with 2.82 million viewers. By 9:23 p.m. the match was at 1.42 million viewers. The match climbed up slightly to 1.73 million viewers at 9:27 p.m. when the match ended, but TNA lost over one million viewers from the start of the match returning from commercial to the end of the match.

Conclusion: Over the past six months as TNA Knockout segments have regularly drawn the highest or nearly-the-highest quarter-hour ratings one each week's Thursday Impact, I've come to the conclusion that Knockout matches or segments involving the "Beautiful People type" Knockouts draw significantly better than Knockout matches featuring straight women's wrestling. One reason is the obvious - males 18-49 flipping through channels are going to stop on "BP-type" segments. (It's evidenced in the next point.) Second reason is that WWE has trained wrestling fans to consider women's wrestling an afterthought or unimportant. TNA has an uphill battle to combat that perception on a national TV level.

WINNERS: Beautiful People

Some of the most noticeable spikes in the minute-by-minute numbers were for the Beautiful People skits playing poker. No surprise there based on the conclusion above. Their first appearance in the first quarter-hour of the show at 8:40 p.m. drew 3.06 million viewers, which was the most non-Hogan segment viewers of the entire show.

Val Venis's appearance at 9:30 p.m. during the Beautiful People skit increased the audience to 2.83 million viewers. At 9:31 p.m., their skit concluded with 2.91 million viewers. Raw was at a commercial break during this time, but these were the two most-watched minutes during the head-to-head two hours vs. Raw other than Hogan's debut segment.

At 11:01 p.m. - following the end of Angle vs. Styles - the rating jumped again to 1.94 million viewers when Mick Foley ran across the Beautiful People. The previous minute was at 1.86 million viewers and the next minute at 11:02 p.m. was at 1.84 million viewers.

LOSERS: Final 85 Minutes

After the head-to-head portion of Impact's final high watermark of 2.91 million viewers for the Beautiful People skit at 9:31 p.m., the audience level eroded over the course of the final 85 minutes with "filler" matches and segments. At 11:04 p.m., the show ended with 1.76 million viewers.

Perhaps it was inevitable casual wrestling fans or curious viewers would get their fill of the main course from Hogan at the top of the second hour vs. the beginning of Raw, then check out Raw as part of their regular viewing habits (especially DX vs. Jericho & Big Show), check out a tightly-contested Fiesta Bowl, or check out all-together.

WINNERS: Angle and Styles

After the erosion period set in, Kurt Angle vs. A.J. Styles actually started with 2.54 million viewers at 10:36 p.m. opposite a commercial break on Raw. Once Raw came back, the match was down to 2.42 million viewers at 10:38. After Impact took a commercial, the audience returned and actually grew slightly to 2.45 million viewers at 10:44 p.m. That was a victory right there.

However, when Raw came back from commercial to start quarter-hour with the finish of Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston, TNA lost a portion of their audience. From 10:45 to 10:54 p.m., Angle-Styles slipped to an average viewing level of 2.05 million viewers.

The match returned from commercial and finished strong, though, with 2.09 million viewers at 10:58 p.m. just before Bret Hart and Vince McMahon had their confrontation on Raw.

Conclusion: TNA was selling the audience on Hogan, not Angle vs. Styles (or even wrestling itself), so the audience erosion was going to be a natural occurrence before the main event. At least the main event finished strong even though it was down one million viewers compared to Hogan's segment at the top of the second hour. Most of that was out of their control, though, due to Raw's head-to-head action and the erosion of the audience.

WINNERS: Surprises

The surprises of Jeff Hardy, Ric Flair, and Eric Bischoff delivered three noticeable ratings spikes.

-- Jeff Hardy delivered viewership of 2.80 million for his sudden appearance at 8:16 p.m. after the X Division Asylum match that opened the show. The Asylum match ended at 8:14 with 2.77 million viewers. Homicide then dangled on the cage forever at 8:15, which dropped viewership to 2.69 million. Hardy then appeared to create an instant 4.1 percent increase from one minute to the next.

-- Ric Flair was shown walking into the Impact Zone with viewership of 2.76 million at 8:29 p.m. and 2.78 million at 8:30 p.m. He was right in line with Jeff Hardy's sudden spike, as Impact drew 2.69 million viewers one minute earlier at 8:28 p.m.

-- We covered Eric Bischoff's spike above, but in summary, Bischoff appearing on TNA TV for the first time delivered 3.22 million viewers at 9:07 p.m. That was a 9.0 percent jump compared to 2.93 million viewers at 9:05 p.m.

WINNER: Jeff Jarrett

TNA took a big chance putting Jeff Jarrett at the top of the third hour opposite the peak of the DX vs. Chris Jericho & Big Show tag match, but Jarrett held his own with an average of 2.06 million viewers. He didn't pop a rating, but he didn't turn people away.

Audience erosion had already set in by the time 10:00 p.m. rolled around, as the average viewership from 9:43 p.m. to 9:58 p.m. was only 1.75 million viewers. After another Bischoff appearance during A.J. Styles's promo at 9:59 p.m. spiked the viewership to 2.38 million viewers, Jarrett walked out at 10:00 p.m. with 2.16 million viewers.

Jarrett's promo and Hulk Hogan's involvement in their infamous promo exchange only dipped below the 2.00-million-level twice and just barely to 1.91 million viewers at 10:04 p.m. as DX vs. Jericho & Show heated up.

The segment was helped by a spike of 2.30 million viewers at 10:02 p.m. that could skew the average segment rating, but otherwise, the segment retained its audience and kept viewers interested with an average of 2.06 million viewers for the entire length of the promo.

CONCLUSION

-- Winners: (1) Hulk Hogan, (2) Beautiful People, (3) Eric Bischoff, (4) Jeff Hardy, (5) Ric Flair, (6) Kurt Angle vs. A.J. Styles, (7) Jeff Jarrett.

-- Losers: (1) Knockouts women's wrestling (have to re-train the casual wrestling audience), (2) Homicide dangling on the cage (match never should have been booked to begin with), (3) "Filler" matches in the second hour eroding the audience.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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