By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

TNA president Dixie Carter says her goal with the new three-year TV deal with Spike TV is to add additional weekly programming to TNA's line-up of shows.

"It's my goal and desire to have additional programming come from this deal as well," Carter said in a report by Multichannel News. "I think you'll see more TNA programming on Spike in the coming years, which is very important for us."

TNA and Spike announced that ten "special episodes" will air as part of the contract renewal. The shows are not being billed as original programs, but compilations of PPV matches and wrestler character profiles. Carter said she wants more original programming as part of the deal down the line.

Spike TV president Kevin Kay took a broad look at the renewal. He said Spike is pleased with TNA's growth after bringing the promotion's weekly TV show to Spike in fall 2005 after WWE returned to USA Network.

"TNA came in with an idea of providing more in ring action, which fit well with our brand, and we thought it was a franchise that we could help build," Kay said. "No other franchise on Spike has shown the growth that TNA has."

In actuality, Impact has been last out of all TV wrestling shows this year in terms of the amount of in-ring wrestling that has taken place per hour. Impact is also last in terms of matches lasting longer than ten minutes to give the audience a "complete story" from bell to bell. Raw isn't exactly blowing Impact away, as both are neck-in-neck for last place, but Impact is delivering the least amount of in-ring wrestling action on average during the week.

Torch specialist Curtis Shanks compiled the following numbers for his weekly "Under the Microscope" column analyzing TNA Impact's weekly shows.

Average in-ring wrestling action per hour - 2009
-- ROH TV: 30.4 minutes
-- WWE Superstars: 25.9 minutes
-- ECW TV: 21.7 minutes
-- WWE Smackdown: 19.9 minutes
-- WWE Raw: 16.0 minutes
-- TNA Impact: 14.7 minutes

Percentage of matches lasting more than 10 minutes - 2009
-- WWE Superstars: 49.1 percent
-- ECW TV: 35.7 percent
-- WWE Smackdown: 35.2 percent
-- ROH TV: 31.2 percent
-- WWE Raw: 18.9 percent
-- TNA Impact: 17.5 percent

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