For the last few months, the future of TNA Impact Wrestling was in question. Contract negotiations with Spike, its current TV home, had gone poorly, and a return to the network seemed doubtful after the beginning of the new year. But on Wednesday, TNA announced their new cable home for 2015: Discovery’s Destination America.
Wait – what the hell is Destination America?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpP2mL7ceHc
Destination America has only been around since 2012, and isn’t exactly in an ideal spot on cable packages. On my Comcast lineup, it’s right between Science Channel and FYI Network, far away from the sports channels and more popular cable channels. Spike, for example, is sandwiched between TBS and Comedy Central – not bad company. Destination America also seems like it has a completely different viewer base than Spike – some of their programming airing includes shows like Hillbilly Blood, A Haunting, Out of Control Drivers, and Buying Alaska.
An estimate from last summer pegged Destination America at 59.6 million households. The same estimate had Spike in 97.6 million homes. As a sports network comparison, ESPN was in 97.7 million in that estimate, and NBA TV was in 59.7 million. That’s one hell of a dropoff. WWE’s flagship shows, Raw and SmackDown, air on USA and SyFy, which are in 98.6 and 97.4 million households, respectively.
Just remember back six months when WWE re-upped their TV rights with NBC Universal, and they only increased their domestic TV rights revenues to $150 million. While the exact specifics of how much money TNA is getting from Discovery are still unknown, they’re moving to a network in nearly 40 million fewer homes than their previous home. That can’t be good for business.
Comments are closed.