By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

Former TNA writer/agent Dutch Mantell says he believes TNA doesn't understand its audience and the current creative team has an arrogant attitude that it's the fault of the audience for not understanding the product as ratings have declined.

"I don’t think they know their audience. In their eyes, if you don’t understand it, it’s not the writing, it’s you," Mantell told Mike Mooneyham of the Charleston Post & Courier newspaper. "The joke seems to be on them."

Mantell's comments come on the heels of Hulk Hogan essentially blaming the audience for low TV ratings during an appearance on Bubba the Love Sponge's radio show earlier this week. "The audience needs to warm up to how TNA is changing and how they're stepping up and how fast it's moving," Hogan said.

Mantell also suggested there is a dark cloud hovering over TNA and the company will be in trouble if Spike TV ever decides to drop TNA programming.

"I’ve been around a lot of offices with the death knell, and the TNA office has got the death knell about it," Mantell claimed. "The only money they’re really making is off Spike, and if Spike balks, they’re screwed."

This week, Spike and TNA shifted Impact up an hour to 8:00 p.m. EST for a more favorable match-up with WWE Raw on Monday nights, added a brand new one-hour show at 7:00 p.m. EST, and continue to air the "Epics" TV highlight show on a regular basis.

Mantell, who was released from TNA at the end of July 2009 during a creative shake-up, defended his work along with Jeff Jarrett and Jim Cornette, saying they were able to take TNA's ratings to a consistent 1.3 level before the new staff undid their work to drop TNA to a 0.9 level.

"I told Jeff Jarrett that his big mistake was allowing bigger con men than him to get in there. That's what he did," Mantell said. "Before Jeff, Cornette, and I left, we had this thing up to a 1.3 for three weeks in a row. When we left, you could almost track the demise of TNA from July 31 backwards. They dropped it down to a 0.9. And it’s continued to drop."

Looking at the ratings, TNA drew between a 1.27 and 1.33 for five weeks from March 19 to April 16, 2009. Right before the creative shake-up, the ratings peaked again for 2009 with a 1.31 on July 23 and 1.29 on July 30.

Supporting Mantell's statement, Impact ratings dipped to a 0.96 on September 3, a 0.93 on September 10, then a 0.91 on November 26.

After the creative team shake-up, the ratings for 21 weeks of TV from August 6 until the end of the year on December 17 averaged a 1.07 rating. By contrast, the average from January 1 to July 31 was a 1.20 rating.

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