By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

Half-way through 2009 with 26 weeks of pro wrestling TV in the record books, ECW TV owns a slim margin in TV ratings over TNA Impact, but TNA Impact owns a slim margin over ECW in TV viewership.

TNA president Dixie Carter said earlier this week that TNA Impact passed ECW's TV ratings. Her statement is correct if looking strictly at the second quarter numbers, but not at the entire 2009 numbers.

In the first quarter of 2009, ECW jumped out to a 3.7 percent lead over Impact in TV viewership and 6.7 percent lead in TV ratings. The second quarter was owned by TNA, though.

In the second quarter, Impact averaged 1.64 million viewers compared to 1.51 million viewers for ECW TV. The difference gave TNA Impact a lead over ECW in average viewership for the year with 1.68 million viewers compared to 1.65 million viewers thus far in 2009.

TNA did not have a better second quarter compared to the first quarter, though. ECW TV simply had a terrible second quarter. Both shows suffered in the second quarter going up against the NBA Playoffs. Also, WWE added a Thursday night show that perhaps took away from TNA's Thursday night audience.

ECW TV's weekly viewership dropped 17.7 percent in the second quarter. The Tuesday night show from WWE also dropped 14.5 percent in TV ratings from 1.30 in the first quarter to 1.14 in the second quarter.

TNA Impact's weekly viewership dropped only 4.3 percent in the second quarter compared to the first. TV ratings dropped 3.4 percent from April - June compared to January - March. Impact took a hit, but not as large as ECW TV.

Following is a progression of how TNA closed the gap to surpass ECW TV in weekly viewership. ECW still owns a slim 1.8 percent margin in TV ratings for the first-half of the year.

January Averages
ECW TV - 1.73 million viewers
TNA Impact - 1.63 million viewers
ECW TV + 6.0 percent

February Averages
ECW TV - 1.75 million viewers
TNA Impact - 1.68 million viewers
ECW TV + 4.5 percent

March Averages
ECW TV - 1.84 million viewers
TNA Impact - 1.82 million viewers
ECW TV + 1.1 percent

***SECOND QUARTER***

April Averages
ECW TV - 1.71 million viewers
TNA Impact - 1.75 million viewers
TNA Impact + 2.4 percent

May Averages
ECW TV - 1.35 million viewers
TNA Impact - 1.58 million viewers
TNA Impact + 16.7 percent

June Averages
ECW TV - 1.47 million viewers
TNA Impact - 1.60 million viewers
TNA Impact + 8.8 percent

2009 Averages
ECW TV - 1.65 million viewers
TNA Impact - 1.68 million viewers
TNA Impact + 1.8 percent

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