By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

Although there were some bumps in the road in the last few weeks, TNA is scheduled to announce on Monday that TNA Impact on Spike TV will be moving to Monday, according to our sources.

The show will not begin on March 1 as originally tentatively scheduled (and prematurely announced). But the move will be made in March. In recent weeks, there was some haggling over money and contract details that held up the finalizing of the deal, although for the past month parties in both TNA and Spike TV believed it was nearly inevitable a deal would be done as both sides agreed in principle it was a move they both agreed was worth trying. The very final paperwork details are being worked out today.

TNA has been given assurances the show will be given a long run on Mondays to find its footing even if it struggles to return to the 1.3 rating it drew up against Raw in the two head-to-head hours.

Impact will begin when Raw begins at 9 p.m. ET and run up against it for at least two hours, and perhaps have an overrun of its own to avoid giving Raw and USA Network the huge bump at 11 p.m. ET.

If the ratings do not exceed what it has averaged on Thursday nights, there is a strong possibility it will be moved back to Thursdays in September when Monday Night Football returns. It'd basically be the way for TNA and Spike TV to "save face" by "retreating to Thursday" because of football, not losing to Raw in the ratings.

A cable industry analyst estimates that TNA Impact will need to draw at least 1.5 rating to stay on Mondays, with hopes within Spike that it does even better. Anything under that might lead to Impact returning to Thursdays before the NFL season begins to avoid a drop under 1.2. If Impact were to bomb on Mondays with, say, a 0.6 average in April, a move back to Thursday could occur quicker.

UPDATED 2:09 p.m. CT: PWTorch has also learned that TNA Impact will not be live every week, as that wasn't something the two sides were able to come to terms on in terms of the associated expenses. So being live once every two or three weeks is most likely.

Keller's Analysis: So it sounds like Impact will be moving to Mondays permanently as soon as March 8 with a live debut, and then tape the March 15 show on March 9, but with tapings scheduled for Monday, March 22 and 23, another possible scenario would be to debut live on March 22 and then tape the March 29 show on March 23. The TV taping schedule was moved from March 1 back to March 8 a few days ago, which indicates they'll be live on March 8, since the next taping isn't scheduled until the first week of April. TNA's rating drop last week should be of concern, but the rating for last night's show could lead to a sign of relief if the audience level is back at 1.9 million instead of the 1.6 million to dropped to last week. The good news about Impact being head-to-head is that it could discourage WWE from expanding Raw to three hours. If Impact started an hour earlier, WWE would have reason to want to try to compete with that first hour. Hopefully for the sake of WWE, its fans, and the long-term ratings health of Raw, they don't expand the show needlessly to three hours by starting an hour earlier.

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