[TotalNonstopHonor]

I'm normally a lurker here at WF because I don't feel the need to talk much, especially since most of the discussion is never acknowledged and most people just want to get their largely unfunny(but they think they are) comments in.

Anyway, one of the biggest annoyances is that each week, a thread is posted about the rating TNA got. Whether it be a .8 or a 1.3, it's completely irrelevant to the viewer, who should be focused on enjoying the product and discussing what direction they'd like TNA to take if they're unhappy with the product(the majority of the people).

I'm not here to come and bash TNA. I don't have much to say since I don't watch Impact too often. I'm here to ask why all of you care so much about the rating of the show, why people try to make excuses for a multi-million dollar company receiving low ratings and why TNA receiving a 1.0 for the 1038120 time in the last 5 years warrants 9+ pages of discussion. The responses are utterly ridiculous, too. How many times can football, basketball, the dog show, a special on another channel, etc. be used as an excuse before people realize that it's not about what's on other channels---it's just that TNA is awful at executing a good professional wrestling show. They have all the talent in the world- Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan should be serving as mentors and should mostly be used in a backstage role showing the guys how to go out there and work. They shouldn't be the focal point of the show in almost 2011!

Why do people care so much about ratings? Is it because they want to see the company succeed? Well, it's always the same with TNA. Unless they have a record rating(a 1.5?) and hold it steadily for several weeks while viewership continues to rise, the rating is irrelevant.

 

[Optikk is All Elite]

The rating discussions are one of the reasons I hate this section of the forum. It comes up everywhere. "THIS GUYS A DRAW CUZ HE DREW A 1.0000000001". "THIS GUYS NOT A DRAW CUZ HE DRAW 0.99"

 

[Roler42]

I'm normally a lurker here at WF because I don't feel the need to talk much, especially since most of the discussion is never acknowledged and most people just want to get their largely unfunny(but they think they are) comments in.

Anyway, one of the biggest annoyances is that each week, a thread is posted about the rating TNA got. Whether it be a .8 or a 1.3, it's completely irrelevant to the viewer, who should be focused on enjoying the product and discussing what direction they'd like TNA to take if they're unhappy with the product(the majority of the people).

I'm not here to come and bash TNA. I don't have much to say since I don't watch Impact too often. I'm here to ask why all of you care so much about the rating of the show, why people try to make excuses for a multi-million dollar company receiving low ratings and why TNA receiving a 1.0 for the 1038120 time in the last 5 years warrants 9+ pages of discussion. The responses are utterly ridiculous, too. How many times can football, basketball, the dog show, a special on another channel, etc. be used as an excuse before people realize that it's not about what's on other channels---it's just that TNA is awful at executing a good professional wrestling show. They have all the talent in the world- Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan should be serving as mentors and should mostly be used in a backstage role showing the guys how to go out there and work. They shouldn't be the focal point of the show in almost 2011!

Why do people care so much about ratings? Is it because they want to see the company succeed? Well, it's always the same with TNA. Unless they have a record rating(a 1.5?) and hold it steadily for several weeks while viewership continues to rise, the rating is irrelevant.

i'll explain it to you buddy

ratings are the number of people that watch your show, the number of people that is tuning into the channel that gave you a contract

if you draw good numbers, the channel pays well and they keep you ona nice timeslot

if the ratings are bad, it means, less money, less viewership, and... if the ratings drop more and more, it means the station wont want your show cuz nobody watches it and then poof, its canceled

only you enjoying the product isnt enough, like it or not, wrestling is a business, a tv deal is a business, the ratings equal the number of people watching and enjoying the product

 

[TotalNonstopHonor]

Seriously, just skimming the thread is ridiculous. Someone said that one of the members of 3D was a draw because they analyzed the quarter hours and the rating went up .03 from the previous segment. .03!! That's just a normal fluctuation!

 

[TotalNonstopHonor]

i'll explain it to you buddy

ratings are the number of people that watch your show, the number of people that is tuning into the channel that gave you a contract

if you draw good numbers, the channel pays well and they keep you ona nice timeslot

if the ratings are bad, it means, less money, less viewership, and... if the ratings drop more and more, it means the station wont want your show cuz nobody watches it and then poof, its canceled

only you enjoying the product isnt enough, like it or not, wrestling is a business, a tv deal is a business, the ratings equal the number of people watching and enjoying the product

Are you under the impression that I'm not aware of what TV ratings are? I'm about to enter college as a mass communications student and have known about the fully flawed Nielsen system for over 8 years and could explain it to you better than you know your own hand.

What do the ratings have to do with you as a fan? Absolutely nothing. If you like the show, tune in. If not, don't. It's as simple as that.

Also, the rating number is completely irrelevant. It's all about the number of viewers, and TNA has plateaued in that sense since their debut on Spike in 2005(sans a few spikes earlier in the year).

 

[Roler42]

Are you under the impression that I'm not aware of what TV ratings are? I'm about to enter college as a mass communications student and have known about the fully flawed Nielsen system for over 8 years and could explain it to you better than you know your own hand.

What do the ratings have to do with you as a fan? Absolutely nothing. If you like the show, tune in. If not, don't. It's as simple as that.

Also, the rating number is completely irrelevant. It's all about the number of viewers, and TNA has plateaued in that sense since their debut on Spike in 2005(sans a few spikes earlier in the year).

then i just wasted my time explaining you if you're still going to shrug it off as "irrelevant"

rating number=number of people watching, people tuning into the show to enjoy it

 

[Digital J]

PPV buys are more impressive than ratings IMO

for example..

lets say i had a wrestling company that drew a .2 rating which is around 200,000 or more wrestling fans

if 100,000 of those fans ordered my ppv.. that would be more impressive than ...

TNAs 1.1 1.2 1.3 whatever.. because out of that number, TNA only gets .5 of their audience to buy their ppvs.. which is horrible


HOWEVERRRRRRRRRRR i do realize ratings are important because they keep the network interested in you because of advertisements.

Even if that's the case.. TNA is fine. Spike is happy with TNA's ratings.. a 1.1 or 1.2 isnt bad at all. Its bad if you compare it to WWE .. but TNA is TNA and should only be compared to TNA

so i think the main focus right now for TNA is to get their attendance up when they travel, merch sales, and maybe an increase in ppv buys

hopefully that made sense..

ratings are important.. to an extent. TNA gets more than okay ratings. is basically what im saying.

 

[PauseMenuNotWanted]

The problem is that TNA does not release its buyrates as it is a private company, but they are described to be "very poor" with under 10,000 buys most of the time.

Ratings on the other hand, get released. It shows that whilst TNA have a decent viewership, it is not translating to PPV buyrates. A solution would be to reduce the number of PPVs they hold every year, but that has been ignored for 2011.

 

[TotalNonstopHonor]

then i just wasted my time explaining you if you're still going to shrug it off as "irrelevant"

rating number=number of people watching, people tuning into the show to enjoy it

You wasted your own time trying to explain it to me. The number is irrelevant to the fans of the product, not the company. You obviously don't take context clues very well.

Rating number is not equal to the number of people watching. It's equal to the percent of people watching the show out of the total percent of people watching TV at that time. That's why TNA often has a 1.0 rating but has 1.4-1.5 million viewers.

Oh, and you really didn't do a good job explaining it anyway.

 

[TotalNonstopHonor]

PPV buys are more impressive than ratings IMO

for example..

lets say i had a wrestling company that drew a .2 rating which is around 200,000 or more wrestling fans

if 100,000 of those fans ordered my ppv.. that would be more impressive than ...

I'm not quoting the entire post because the format gave me a headache.

That would be one of the most successful businesses of all time if you could manage to convince 50% of your target market to purchase the product.

A better comparison would have been UFC, whose shows draw well enough but have the most watched PPV sporting events today. They're the only successful sporting company operating now that is able to draw more than 1,000,000+ buys without bringing in a celebrity. Wrestlemania won't draw more than 1,000,000 again unless there's another boom period or they have a big return.

 

[TotalNonstopHonor]

Also, why are people so inclined to go as far as to check out the quarter ratings and determine who is or isn't a draw?

 

[nekro]

Its matters because ratings = money.
Companies want to advertise during high rated shows, ie, TNA would make more money in their t.v contract if they drew high #'s.
So if TNA gets high ratings, then they get more money.
More money for TNA= win for fans. They leave the IZ more, they sign more people, they increase production, etc etc.

 

[J-Co]

It's a silly argument anyway as NO ONE, in this day and age of professional wrestling, is a draw. Vince McMahon made sure of that, as he gobbled up the stars of the territories, put them all under one roof, and sold the then WWF name (now WWE) as the marquee. People don't buy a ticket to a house show because of The Undertaker. They buy a ticket to the house show because of WWE. Granted big name, main eventers will get more attention but how many people would go to a $15 Indy show in your city compared to "hey, wrestling is coming to town!" (as WWE is synonymous with wrestling the way Tylenol is for aspirin).

TotalNonstopHonor is absolutely right in that the ratings for TNA do not matter to us as all, nor have they ever, nor should they ever. The ratings became a talking point during the "Monday Night Wars" because it was an easy way to look and see who "won" on any given Monday. "Oh, well WCW got a 3 and WWF got a 2, so WCW won this week." TNA going weekly from a 1.0, 1.1, .9, 1.0 does not mean anything at all. Instead people will be like "well it went from a 1.1 to a .9! It was because of (other show here) and RVD failed!!" It's ridiculous but it's just a carry-over from WCW because a lot of fans are desperate for some sort of new "war" or because they want to point at the numbers and either laugh at or become encouraged about TNA.

Also, don't even get into the advertising aspect of it. When WCW was pulling in MONSTER numbers, you still had Gastrol GTX and 1-800-Call ATT commercials...

 

[HardKoR]

i can' see your point but its not a valid one when it comes to company growth. As flawed as Nielsen ratings may be, the equation still stands.

The higher your rating, the more money you make, the better your product can become. That means production that doesn't look like it was filmed by a high school RTVF class, lives shows, bigger venues, PPV outside of the IZ. GROWTH gah damn it, how is that so had to understand? We worry about the rating because we want to see TNA grow.

If it's TNA's intention to be like a microbrewery where they produce a good product for a small market, and nothing more, then sure ratings don't matter. But if they are planning to take on the giant that is WWE they need to grow, and money helps... a lot!

 

[Ph3n0m]

It's a silly argument anyway as NO ONE, in this day and age of professional wrestling, is a draw. Vince McMahon made sure of that, as he gobbled up the stars of the territories, put them all under one roof, and sold the then WWF name (now WWE) as the marquee. People don't buy a ticket to a house show because of The Undertaker. They buy a ticket to the house show because of WWE.

Living in Scotland the WWE only comes by a few times a year - and as they do it as one company, both Raw and SD are in town at the same time normally. Now I'm not financially endowed well enough to simply say "Fuck it, I'll go to both" - so I have to make that decision, which one do I go to see?

And that normally comes down to one or two guys on the roster that I really want to see.

Example, I chose SD after WM this year to see Punk and Jericho (Jericho wasn't on the card, not amused).

The fact is, money is tight and tickets ain't cheap - if there isn't going to be someone I really want to see at a house show, I'm not going to pay the money.

So people do still draw, to some extent.

Anyway, as for the OPs points - I get what he's saying. Why should we, as fans, give a fuck about the ratings? But I would counter with a simple fact - TNA care about the ratings. Therefore, if I enjoy the show, but it gets a poor rating - TNA are going to change the show. This affects me as a fan, so therefore I have a right to have an interest on how individual Impacts (and indeed Raws) do in the ratings.

 

[The Great Maijin]

people overrate the ratings. half of the iwc's ideas probably wouldn't be the highest draw. also ratings =/= quality. people just find anyway to hate on TNA.

 

[J-Co]

So people do still draw, to some extent.

OK, change the substantial scenario a little bit: instead of RAW or Smackdown, how about RAW or an Indy that had Punk/Jericho on the card. Are you choosing that Indy with the two guys you want to see over a WWE produced show? Most people aren't. That might differ to internet fans but for the masses?

 

[Carcass]

The best part about ratings discussion on here, be it TNA or WWE, is the excuses people come up with when ratings get low.

 

[Roler42]

anyway... this thread is pointless if in the end you're going to insist that they're irrelevant to you, it would be better if they close it and discuss the ratings on their proper threads

 

[J-Co]

What were the old ratings for the WCW "Mothership" Saturday Night? Because to me, iMPACT! feels a lot more like that show than trying to compare it to RAW.

A 1.1 weekly is not dreadful. Having the same audience each week is not bad either. It just seems a little outdated. Not just that but TNA are trying to run 12 PPV a year and Saturday Night was (to the best of my memory, I could be wrong) only an hour long. Actually, maybe it was two hours? I don't remember. I feel old.