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TNA News
TNA Impact Ratings: Some good news and some bad news with quarter hour and demo breakdowns (w/Keller Analysis) Aug 11, 2008 - 2:44:32 PM
The Aug. 7 edition of TNA Impact drew a 1.0 rating, down from the previous week's 1.1 rating. Impact did draw strong ratings in key demographics, such as the highest 18-49 rating since it expanded to two hours on Oct. 4, 2007. It was also the highest M18-49 rating - what Spike TV covets - in seven months, since the Jan. 17, 2008 show. It was also the highest M18-34 rating - another key Spike demo - in fourh months. All of these high marks are by a sliver, but they are positives despite the rating dropping.
Keller's Analysis: The quarter hour ratings are scary, though. The first hour ratings went from 1.03 to 0.99 to 0.94 down to 0.87! That's a huge drop relatively speaking, a loss of 15 percent of the audience as the show progressed, and absolutely inexcusible. What it says is fans tuned in eager to watch Impact, but what the promotion delivered turned them away in the form of hundreds of thousands of viewers. There's no one obvious trigger point to explain the drop as TNA preseted a typical product in the first hour, with a mix of characters who have held audiences before and a those who have turned away viewers before. Q4 did have two commercial breaks, which explains a bit of a drastic drop in that particular quarter.
From there, the audience rebuilt slightly at the start of the second hour to a 0.89 and then popped it's head above 1.0 for Aweome Kong vs. Salinas, continuing the trend of the TNA Knockouts ratings drawing power. Then it crashed down to a 0.93 rating for Q7 which included two commercial abreaks, a video package, and an interview backstage with A.J. Styles. The main event drew the second highest rating of the show, a 1.07 for Kurt Angle & Tomko & Kip James & Booker T vs. A.J. Styles & Samoa Joe & Matt Morgan & B.G. James in a weapons gauntlet match. You throw that much talent and that many stips into a TV main event and give it 13 minutes and it better draw a better than average rating. It did, but barely.
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