TNA is moving Impact back to its original timeslot of Thursday nights at 9PM EST effective immediately. The move has put an end to the brief renewal of the Monday Night Wars where Impact went head-to-head with WWE Raw.
The move was announced during the final Monday night broadcast of Impact and was said to be because TNA fans wanted the show back on its original night and time. While that may not be the whole truth, the move was probably in the best interest of the company as their ratings had taken a significant hit since moving to Monday nights.
At first it looked like TNA could hold its own against Raw and WWE when it pulled in their highest rating ever with their 3-hour Monday night special back in January. From there they dove in head first and challenged WWE by moving their show to go directly against it. I have to give them credit for trying and for introducing a live aspect that was rarely seen on Impact, but it may have been too much too soon.
After going directly head-to-head with Raw, TNA made the wise decision to put the show on an hour earlier. During these shows, though, it seemed most of the first hour was wasted and people began to tune out of the show once Raw started. For example, this past week’s edition of Impact featured one meaningless tag team match and a pull apart brawl that would never end. A few other segments were thrown in, but nothing to really keep viewers tuned in, nor was it a good use of an unopposed hour.
It also seemed to me that the ratings reflected whether or not the show was live or taped. Live shows seemed to gain higher ratings, and also seemed to be better shows altogether, than the taped ones. The move also seemed to be at a time when WWE was firing on all cylinders with WrestleMania, the retirement of Shawn Michaels and the WWE Draft. It is no wonder why Impact ended up pulling in some of their lowest ratings during these shows.
Even though the move may have been ill-timed and a return to Thursday nights was inevitable, I do wish the “war” lasted a little longer than it did. With Impact going back to Thursday nights, the show will lose out on the live aspects that made the show better and I feel the competition brought out the best in both promotions, which made wrestling better as a whole.
TNA is lucky to have a partner in Spike TV that seemingly will bend over backwards for the company. Since their start in 2005, Impact has been on late night on Saturday and Thursday nights before moving into primetime with a 2-hour time slot. It was then moved to Monday nights where it switched timeslots before moving back to Thursday nights.
The move back has also helped TNA gain more programming. Once the move back to Thursday has been re-established, Spike TV will be branding Thursday nights as TNA Thursdays and will add an hour of programming with TNA Reaction. The new show will begin airing on June 24th and will air as a lead-in to Impact. The pilot for Reaction aired prior to the April 12th edition of Impact.
This whole experiment over the past few months has to have been a learning experience for TNA. One can only hope that they learn from their mistakes and try to focus on their own product instead of trying to compete directly with WWE. I will say that I enjoyed the competition and hope to see more in the future, but TNA has some growing to do before any of that happens.
Although Monday nights seemed to work better for me, I will be moving back to Thursday nights along with Impact.
