Live Broadcast of Impact on March 27th

Reports circulated on Friday that TNA would be airing Impact live on Spike for the first time on March 27th. Not surprisingly, none of these reports came straight from TNA themselves, nor were they found in the Industry News section of WWE.com. I decided to wait to offer my thoughts and comments on the broadcast until I was able to hear about it straight from the horse’s mouth, which finally came this morning.

Today, TNA officially announced the news of the live broadcast in a press release on their web site. This is quite a milestone for the company as it will be the first time since joining up with SpikeTV in October of 2005 that it will be aired live as it happens. In a not-so-subtle nod to WrestleMania XXIV, TNA President, Dixie Carter, stated that this would be a celebration for the “thousands of pro wrestling fans” that will converge in the Orlando, Florida, area at the end of March.

Now, this isn’t going to be a weekly occurrence as they also announced in the press release that they would be taping one show on each of the following two days, which would bring us into Lockdown pay-per-view. It is a step in the right direction, though.

Give any wrestling fan a choice between watching a live wrestling show or a taped one and they will all choose the live show. A live show has that feeling to it that anything can, and probably will, happen. With that being said, anything can, and probably will, go wrong.

Watch any Impact closely and you will notice several cuts and edits made to the program. I have been providing Impact recaps to Gerweck.net for nearly two years and I have become an expert at picking them out. If there is something that went a little too long or something that didn’t seem to go too well with the live crowd, no worries, just edit it out. You lose that luxury with live television.

This isn’t something totally new for TNA either as they do provide live broadcasts of their monthly pay-per-view events, but even those have gone wrong – who can forget the fire that was started after the opening fireworks display during Hard Justice in 2006? Plus, I’m not a television producer, but my mind tends to think that producing a pay-per-view and producing a weekly television show are two completely different things.

At any rate, I’m hoping the show goes well for them and maybe even brings the ratings up a little bit. A ratings increase for a live show may persuade them and SpikeTV to do more live airings in the future. I wouldn’t mind seeing Impact go live every week, if not at least every other week, just to give the show that feeling of spontaneity once in a while. Until then, I’ll take the occasional live broadcast here and there.