TNA Impact Wrestling seems to be a sinking ship at the moment as the show nearly hit an all-time low in terms of viewership during its last episode. Aired on Pop TV, the episode was watched by 284,000 viewers, which is much lower than the previous week’s figure of 305,000 viewers.
This comes as a bit of a surprise as this Thursday’s show not only featured a championship match but also witnessed the in-ring debut of former WWE superstar Cody Rhodes.
In terms of an episode being aired for the first time, this past week’s viewership was the lowest since the 14th June episode which saw only 210,000 viewers. But the show was replayed due to technical glitches in the first-run and garnered another 117,000 viewers, thereby increasing its total audience figure to 327,000.
Since Impact Wrestling made a move to Pop TV from Destination America early this year, the week gone by brought in the 9th lowest viewership for the show without considering replays. Starting from the month of April, though, the network has stopped airing replays for TNA’s primary weekly show apart from the one exception mentioned earlier.
A major cause of concern for TNA is the fact that in terms of overall viewership for Impact Wrestling, including both first-time airings and replays, Thursday’s episode produced the lowest audience number for the show on Pop TV. Moreover, it was also the 2nd least viewed episode in Impact’s history since it aired for the first time on Spike TV in 2005.
The lowest TV audience that Impact has ever witnessed since its inception was during its 11th November 2015 episode where the first airing brought in just 202,000 viewers. Adding in the 78,000 viewers who watched the replay, the total figure arrived at 280,000 which is a little lower than last week’s numbers.
Perhaps the primary reason behind Impact Wrestling’s popularity going down is the exit of some big names who attracted the interest of the audience. With superstars like AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Sting and Samoa Joe among others walking out on TNA, the company has been struggling to find athletes who can fill their shoes.
Looking at the way things are going at the moment, there is a possibility that Impact Wrestling’s viewership may go down further in the weeks to come.
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