When Russo left as head writer near the end of 2011 they were just under 2 million viewers (he only consulted during his 9 month stint from 2013-2014). TNA finished their Destination America run at 200-300,000 viewers. The numbers speak for themselves, when Russo was writing TNA had their peak ratings. When he left, even just a year later in 2012, the ratings had dropped. During 2012 TNA booked an IWC catering product as well with Austin Aries winning the title, and ratings dropped noticeably for the first time in company history (outside of the 2010 Monday night run which hurt ratings for 3-4 months before they rebounded). TNA's ratings generally up until that point had been on a consistent upswing, with an October 2011 Impact hitting 2 million viewers.
Also like Russo said, the product has especially been IWC based since the summer 2014 New York tapings, and ratings noticeably dropped during the final months on Spike, and completely collapsed on Destination America to the point where the ratings now aren't that far off from some YouTube wrestling shooters. While the DA ratings were never going to be great due to less households, with 60% of the households of Spike they should have been able to at least maintain half of the Spike audience or close to it, and I believe TNA only ever hit 500,000 once or twice on Destination America (and that's combining different airing ratings).
