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View Full Version : TNA reuniting with Spike TV for the UK market and rumored to be leaving POP TV in the near future


Emperor Smeat
03-02-2017, 09:14 PM
Signed a deal with Spike TV UK to show Impact for the UK market starting this Spring.

Impact Wrestling announced a new television deal in the United Kingdom today with Spike U.K., a two-year-old station in the market that also airs Bellator.

Spike U.K. airs a lot of Spike TV programming as well as some shows from parent Ch. 5 in the U.K.

The station broadcasts in the U.K. and Ireland. Only a handful of shows in the history of the station have done 200,000 viewers.

The deal goes into effect in the spring, and will air Impact every week, as well as monthly live and taped PPVs. TNA Xplosion will air on the smaller My5.

Impact will air on Friday nights, the night after the show debuts in the U.S. and Canada.

Impact had been out of the U.K. since being canceled by Challenge TV. Its ratings had declined greatly on the station prior to being dropped. Impact had often had more viewers than Raw or SmackDown in the U.K. in the past, but that's misleading since Challenge was available in far more homes than Sky.



Also seems to have recently signed Alberto Del Rio/Patron as part of the new batch of wrestlers showing up at the on-going tapings.
The new regime of Impact Wrestling debuts at tonight's tapings with a ton of new faces expected as well as old faces being gone.

Besides the names already written about, Alberto El Patron, Garza Jr., Rachael Ellering, Kongo Kong, and Laredo Kid are coming in along with the likes of Konnan, Matt Morgan, Bruce Prichard, and perhaps Karen Jarrett.

Brooke Adams will not be appearing for any of the tapings. Cody appears only tonight.

It also appears Jeremy Borash will be the new lead announcer for TNA.

Outsider
03-03-2017, 08:58 AM
Better for TNA than the previous deal with Challenge. Challenge really just showed repeats of old gameshows so was never much of a fit. It was also fairly hidden on the channel list for Freeview and Sky which would hurt casual viewers.

Spike will more likely fit their target audience and should be a good fit.

Still would have been better for them to get on Channel 5 proper or one of the ITV channels. Massive potential audience there and always thought it would be a good fit if they don't recreate World of Sport properly.

Emperor Smeat
03-06-2017, 02:56 AM
Supposedly Jeff Jarrett and a high level rep from Spike TV held a meeting recently in regards to the idea of Impact returning to the channel within the near future.

Jeff Jarrett has reportedly met with an executive from Spike TV about possibly returning Impact Wrestling to the network. Pro Wrestling Sheet reports that Spike TV senior vice president and executive producer Scott Fishman was at today’s Impact taping and met with Jarrett about a variety of topics. A possible return to the network in the US was among those topics discussed.

Fishman was an executive producer for Bellator on Spike, as well as an EP on the Kimbo Slice: One of a Kind documentary. Fishman was heavily involved in developing Impact in the show’s early days.

There’s no word on how talks went between the two, nor what it may mean for Pop TV’s contract with Impact. Impact Wrestling is returning to Spike TV in the UK starting in April, and PWS reports that several promos for the UK debut were shot during the weekend.

SlickyTrickyDamon
03-06-2017, 03:02 AM
If true LOLTNA is dead. LOLDixie forever.

erickman
03-06-2017, 07:27 AM
I guess spike hated russo and Dixie since Viacom owns pop and spike the move should be easy

Simple Fan
03-06-2017, 09:12 AM
I guess spike hated russo and Dixie since Viacom owns pop and spike the move should be easy

Viacom doesn't own Pop. CBS and Lions Gate each own 50%.

#STD post

erickman
03-06-2017, 09:38 AM
I thought Viacom owned cbs

Simple Fan
03-06-2017, 09:49 AM
They were close to merging back in 2016. I think they are both controlled by the same company, National Amusements.