By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

TNA Impact on Thursday, February 24 scored a 1.26 overall rating. The first hour scored a 1.22 rating and the second hour increased to a 1.30 rating.

The high point for the show was a 1.42 rating in Q5 to begin the second hour, which featured Ric Flair and A.J. Styles's in-ring exchange, followed by Hernandez, Matt Morgan, and Fortune's involvement.

The low point for the show was a 1.17 rating in Q2 and in Q7. The second quarter-hour featured Gunner & Murphy vs. Young & Jordan. The seventh quarter-hour included videos, promos, and two commercials.

First Hour Break Down

-- Impact with a 1.27 rating in Q1, which was right at the show's overall average. The first 15 minutes of the show featured Mr. Anderson and Rob Van Dam's exchang, then Eric Bischoff's involvement.

-- Impact then dropped to a show-low 1.17 rating in Q2 for the Gunner & Murphy vs. EY & OJ tag match. The 7.8 percent decline from Q1 to Q2 was in-line with a 6.8 percent decline on last week's Impact.

-- Impact increased slightly to a 1.22 rating in Q3 and a 1.23 rating in Q4, both below the overall show average.

The third quarter-hour featured Devon, Ray, and Tommy Dreamer in a segment, Magnus vs. Crimson in a quick squash match, and two commercial breaks.

The fourth quarter-hour featured Rob Terry and Scott Steiner's pose down and one commercial break.

Second Hour Break Down

-- Impact opened the second hour with a 15.5 percent increase from Q4 to Q5, which scored a 1.42 rating for the Styles-Flair exchange.

-- Impact scored the second-highest-rating of the show in Q6 with a 1.35 rating for this week's Knockouts match of Madison Rayne vs. ODB.

-- From there, Impact dropped to a show-low 1.17 rating in Q7, representing a 17.6 percent decline from Q5 and a 13.3 percent decline from Q6.

The seventh quarter-hour featured backstage segments, Jarrett wedding vignettes, and two commercials.

-- Impact increased to a 1.24 rating in Q8, which was below the overall show average, for the main event of Angle vs. RVD vs. Anderson and the "shocking surprise" teasing Sting's return on next week's Impact.

Caldwell's Analysis: Some of the usual ratings patterns with an above-average opening, a swoon until the start of the second hour, strong performance by the Knockouts in their segment on the show, Q7 bottoming out, and a slight uptick in Q8. The numbers should expand next week for the heavily promoted March 3 episode, then it will be interesting to see if the numbers follow the usual pattern of a short-term uptick before returning to the standard water level.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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