By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

TNA Impact last Thursday, November 14 officially scored a 0.96 rating. This was off a first hour 1.06 rating and second hour 0.87 rating.

Based on our records, the hourly decline of two-tenths of a rating is one of the largest drop-offs over the past three years.

The episode followed a recent pattern of Impact starting strong following their "Cops" lead-in Spike TV, then slowly losing viewers throughout the show. In this case, the drop-off was significantly greater than usual.

The drop-off was captured by Impact opening with a 1.17 rating in Q1 following Cops, declining to a 0.99 rating in Q5, and finishing with a 0.82 rating in Q8.

Impact Break Down

Q1: Impact opened with a show-high 1.17 rating for Bully Ray and Mr. Anderson's opening confrontation, plus one commercial.

Q2: Impact began its descent with a 1.09 rating for Anderson vs. Knux in the opening match, plus one commercial.

Q3: Impact continued to decline with a 1.06 rating for Christopher Daniels vs. Joseph Park, one commercial, and the first portion of Ethan Carter III's weekly squash match. This was the last quarter-hour above a 1.0.

Q4: Impact fell to a 0.91 rating for a segment containing the end of ECIII's squash match, backstage/video segments, and two full commercial breaks.

Q5: Impact got a slight top-of-the-second-hour bump to a 0.99 rating for Dixie Carter's featured in-ring speech addressing the TNA Title tournament, then one commercial. From here, Impact dropped two stair-steps...

Q6: Impact dropped to a 0.86 rating for a typically-strong Knockouts match with Gail Kim in action, plus one commercial.

Q7: Impact fell to a show-low 0.80 rating for Joseph Park returning to the ring to challenge Abyss next week, one commercial, and the first-half of Kurt Angle vs. Austin Aries.

Q8: Impact leveled off with a measly 0.82 rating for the end of Angle-Aries and one commercial break.

Caldwell's Analysis: The presence of a strong "Cops" lead-in has skewed the overall ratings comparisons in recent months, but the weekly pattern is the audience tunes out after Dixie Carter's heel promo/talking/featured segments. Not only has TNA miscast Carter in the role, but the indirect effect is making the supposedly top wrestling stars in the company seem like schoolchildren being pushed around by the principal. It was the same problem from the start of WWE's presentation of The Authority when they lined up their "students" on-stage to dress them down. It makes the stars look un-star-like, instead of enhancing the stars to be the biggest, toughest, best competitors on the planet who are worth time and monetary investment. It's an epidemic in pro wrestling right now.

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