Numbers Are Our Friend

[thedarkness214]

pyroandballyhoo.com

“I think the audience was challenging us to give them something a little more straightforward — good old-fashioned wrestling instead of laborious talk or long, drawn-out stories,” says executive VP John Gaburick. “The long-form story lines that take forever to play out were not that effective.”

TNA Head of Creative John Gaburick earlier this month to ESPN’s GRANTLAND.

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Impact on Wednesday, September 24 scored a 0.81 rating, down from a 0.88 rating last week.

Impact drew 969,000 viewers, down 13 percent from last week’s audience of 1.11 million viewers.

Yesterday’s TNA numbers, based on a “straightforward–good old-fashion wrestling show.”

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Why does John Gaburick THINK anything when he has the numbers at his disposal that TELL him everything he needs to know? No matter what year it was, or what company I was working with at the time, when I crunched the numbers after every show the non-wrestling minutes always out drew the wrestling ones. That is a FACT, not something I dreamed up over the course of 20+ years, but, a proven fact. The truth is that over the last two decades nobody ever picked apart the weekly numbers like I did through quarter hours and minute-by-minutes. Why? Good question. Well, for me—I had no choice. My livelihood depended on the cold, hard facts—RATINGS–opposed to what I “personally” liked, or didn’t like. The wrestling purists would never go through this exercise simply because of what the facts are going to tell them. As the great Disco Inferno simply put it on the Swerve, “Wrestling doesn’t draw.” And, then there’s your third category, those that are too lazy. IN MY OPINION, Gaburick, Dixie Carter and Spike TV fall under this category. Dixie Carter told me herself a few months back when I asked her for the minute-by-minutes, and then questioned if anybody at TNA was looking at them. Her answer, “No. It’s too time-consuming.”

Wrestling fans will always watch a wrestling show. Casual fans—who are not fans of wrestling—won’t. BUT, they will tune in to watch what they are accustomed to seeing on the other channels, such as; drama, comedy, horror, romance, conflict, sex, “reality”, all elements of a wrestling show other than wrestling. The Attitude Era made that point crystal clear. Yet, no matter what the numbers have dictated since I’ve been studying them from 1996-2014—”By God, we’re going to give them wrestling!” And TNA did on Wednesday night. All wrestling—nothing else. The numbers speak for themselves.

Yes, there are going to be those that are going to scream, that TNA’s low number might have had something to do with its top stars not being on the show. Ok–whose fault was that—MINE? The top stars were probably not on the show because with TNA’s ridiculous shooting schedule, they were probably all tapped out “working” wise. I get that, these guys are not machines. But–what about a promo? What about some backstage hi-jinx? No—”We’re going to give them WRESTLING!”

Remember, I was working as a consultant with TNA as these TVs were being laid out. Gaburick’s direct quote was, “The New York crowd is going to want wrestling, so we’re going to give them wrestling!” Vince McMahon taught me my first few months in the business that you never play to the HOUSE. What that means is that you don’t book, write or perform to the live crowd watching—you perform to the MILLIONS at home viewing your show on their TVs. That’s the WWE Universe they’re always talking about. That’s the MONEY.

Case in point–Gaburick decided they were going to give the NY crowd—all 750-1,000 that showed up at the Manhattan Civic Center–wrestling because that’s what they wanted. OK—what about the 250 million people watching TV at home—what did they want? Ask any member of the Brand, when I did my podcast on Wednesday night right after IMPACT, I basically said that the ratings the next day were going to be the drizzlin’ S***S! How did I know that? Am I David “FREAKIN’ BLAINE? I knew that because I did my homework for the last 20 years! The casual television audience–-the MASSIVE audience—the ONLY audience that matters to YOUR BUSINESS—aren’t wrestling fans and aren’t going to watch a straight forward wrestling show—EVER!

God, it’s just so damn frustrating. What don’t they understand? It’s just simple math. LOOK AT YOUR NUMBERS! Bring in a college intern FOR FREE to break them down! WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?! You need to learn and understand what they tell you—then adjust, and carve out a direction from there. You can’t base your entire business, on what YOU THINK-–UNLESS YOU’RE JESUS HIMSELF!!! You need the factual evidence and YOU HAVE IT!!! Do I need to go back and publicly release all the data I passed along to you while I was consulting? Why do you ignore that? Why don’t you give the masses what they want?!

It’s just a joke. It’s a shame that I care more than you do, while I’m sitting here and you’re sitting there.

Keep “THINKING”.