TNA UK TV partner announcers its discontinuing airing show as of January 2017 (w/Keller’s Analysis)

By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor


SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...

Challenge network in the United Kingdom has announced the discontinuation of airing TNA Impact Wrestling. In a statement issued today, the station touted the “great moments” TNA has brought to the Network such as British Bootcamp and said “they will continue to great things – we wish them all the best.” The full statement follows:

We know that many TNA fans will be disappointed to hear this, but we wanted to let you all know that as of January 2017, Challenge will no longer be the home of TNA in the UK. TNA has been a huge and important part of Challenge’s story over the years and we will treasure some great moments like the British Bootcamp and UK tours. We have been proud to bring UK viewers coverage of TNA and have huge respect for the company and its fans. TNA is packed with great talent and we know they will continue to do great things – we wish them all the best.

TNA issued this response on their website:

We are proud to have had such a great relationship with Challenge, and appreciate how the channel has brought Impact Wrestling to our avid viewers through the years. In today’s world, spoilers are inevitable. We’ve heard from the fans in the UK and know you do not want to wait 3-5 days to watch the program after it airs in the U.S. Our goal is to broadcast Impact Wrestling in the U.K. as close to the U.S. premiere as possible. We look forward to announcing that opportunity soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we hope you continue to watch IMPACT Wrestling on Challenge, Sunday nights at 9 p.m., as well as Xplosion and pay-per-views, and follow us on social media.

Keller’s Analysis: This would be a significant blow to TNA if they don’t have another channel they can air their programming on in the UK. Their annual UK tours, while drawing smaller crowds in subsequent years, was a real annual highpoint for Impact in terms of crowd size, crowd enthusiasm, and roster morale. Whatever revenue the UK TV rights gave to TNA are gone until TNA finds another home. The note about spoilers and the delayed airing of 3-5 days after the U.S. is pretty lame. It’d be one thing if TNA Impact aired live in the U.S., but shows are taped weeks, if not months, ahead of time. If they announce a new partnership soon and it airs closer to the U.S. date, then all will be well. If not, this came across as an attempt to put a positive spin on a bad situation. Whatever revenue the Challenge TV deal was providing TNA, it gets subtracted from an already thin profile of revenue sources keeping TNA Impact viable to any ownership group.

NOW CHECK OUT OUR PREVIOUS TNA NEWS UPDATE: Dixie Carter beats Billy Corgan in court, ruling gives continued control to Dixie’s Consortium (w/Keller’s Analysis)

[Thanks to PWTorch.com reader David Taylor for alerting us to this via email. Send newstips to pwtorch@gmail.com.]

7 Comments on TNA UK TV partner announcers its discontinuing airing show as of January 2017 (w/Keller’s Analysis)

  1. It’s hilarious. The hypocrisy. This Challenge network was seen as nothing more than a joke of a channel for being a channel that aired game show reruns and TNA.

    Now that TNA lost them, it’s a vital blow to the company? It wasn’t considered a good network for them in the UK.

  2. challenge tv is free and available to all house holds with a tv in the uk, the number of people watching in the uk has equalled or exceeded the numbr in the usa since they lost the spike tv channel.
    Impact was one of a very small number of new programes on challenge and it will be interesting for uk media watchers to see if there is going to be more new programmes on challenge. tna would not have drawn the large crowds in the uk with out challenge, finally no point speculating on this as we wont hear anything about a new channel till tna has left challenge but mr keller is correct that this will be a massive blow if there is no channel as it will kill off the uk tours. finally is this the end of one night only ppvs as i thought these were mainly just done for challenge?

  3. The spoilers bit is fine because myself and many others follow TNA wrestler Twitter accounts which tend to comment on Impact while it’s being broadcast in the US so often we have to just avoid Twitter until we get to see the show. And for many of us same UK viewrs the only reason we tuned into Challenge was for Impact. Got no real use for it when that ends.

    • Sounds like this Challenge channel is as useless for U.K. viewers once TNA is gone as Destination America was for viewers here in the U.S. Once TNA was off the channel I deleted DA from my channel lineup. I had ZERO interest in their other programming. Unlike POP TV, which has other good shows on that I only discovered BECAUSE they started airing TNA.

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