By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

TNA's decision to cut back to four live Sunday night PPVs this year is great news. This is not admitting defeat but rather acknowledging reality. It also could increase PPV profitability and improve TV ratings.

TNA offers two hours of live programming a week including big matches between big names on a regular basis. Then they turned around and asked people to pay for three hours of matches that weren't all that different than plucking out six-to-eight matches from the previous few weeks of TV.

Because PPVs were every month, it just wasn't realistic to build it up into a genuinely big event. By moving to a quarterly schedule, they really have a chance to promote them as must-see events. I've advocated this move for a couple years for TNA.

TNA was drawing an estimated 8,000 to 30,000 PPV buys each month, but the bigger events they built up as "special" tended to do better. Fans of TNA will pay for a premium product, but that just wasn't a feeling they could give fans every four weeks. By waiting three months between shows, they truly will feel special and memorable if TNA does it's job.

Also, TNA can cut back on hype on Impact. They can focus on making Impact as good as it can be. They can, without a sense of conflict, tell stories on the TV show without always saving the big payoff for the monthly PPV. Now, Impact can build to bigger matches within each three month window.

TNA survives on a revenue model weighted very heavily toward what Spike TV pays them. That's a much bigger percentage of their revenue than WWE's, relative to other revenue streams. PPV has been a tiny fraction of revenue, and frankly demoralizing because wrestlers knew so few people were seeing their best efforts (when they were able to muster the energy and inspiration to give their best effort to such a small crowd).

Presumably TNA will always have PPVs outside of the Impact Zone. This also differentiates the new quarterly PPV format.

Very very few people - even those who had an affinity to TNA - would spent $35-$45 every month to see three more hours of TNA wrestling, especially with such a high saturation on cable of all pro wrestling brands. I think TNA fans will rationalize watching once every three months, and more will order every three months than those who "skipped two out of three PPVs" in the monthly schedule.

There's just something psychologically satisfying about being a "completist" if you're a TNA fan, and with three months of build up, I see PPV buy rates going up, likely exceeding or at least coming close to the grand total of buys for three PPVs under the month format.

If three PPVs typically drew 10,000, 10,000, and 15,000 buys, I could see the quarterly events doing 25,000 to 40,000 buys with the added hype and diminished saturation. So TNA obviously would win in that sceario. In a year or two, if they grow in viewership or develop a star who catches fire, they could consider going to six a year. But it's nice to have at least one promotion "leaving fans wanting more."

This is a good move for TNA, a necessary move, and a move that serves the fans and TNA's short-term and long-term business interests.

TNA PPVs just became a lot more relevant in 2013.

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