The Experiment is Over

This past Monday night, TNA threw in the proverbial towel. The early rumors are that TNA did marketing research and found out that fans of the product prefer them on Thursdays. That may be the case but one cannot dispute the fact that since arriving on Monday nights, TNA has struggled against the big dog. Their 1.5 from January 4^th soon dropped to a 0.5 last week.

Many will say that “TNA lost the war” or that “TNA failed on Monday Nights.” Whatever the claim is, that is now history. The one question I ask, is will TNA learn from history if in fact they test the waters again?  There are many things TNA did wrong when they attempted to take over Mondays:

Too much of a gap between January 4^th and March 8

It’s a simple fact that TNA had momentum following January 4^th. The internet media was buzzing and people were talking. Unfortunately TNA took too long to make the eventual move to Monday Nights and they had no real momentum going into the show.

Going Head to Head with Raw

Nobody should dispute the fact that WWE is a much bigger and more powerful entity in pro wrestling. Monday Nights is there nights and TNA tried to take a piece of the pie. However instead of taking a little bite, they thought they should go head to head with the cook and take the whole thing. When TNA went head to head for both hours against Raw, they got destroyed. Eventually the move to the 7 to 9 EST timeslot gave them that hour to boost their fanbase.

Replays

When you have a show on Monday and a replay on Thursday, you give your fans the opportunity to miss the original airing knowing they can catch it later in the week. While the ratings have to be completely judged differently because of this, I think that it harmed TNA’s impact on Monday Night. Why catch TNA over WWE if you can watch both shows during the week?

Lack of Advertising

TNA has a philosophy of giving the fans big matches on Impact without advertising them ahead of the show. They believe they create a “can’t miss show” but unfortunately this doesn’t work when you have competition in the same genre. When WWE announces big matches ahead of time, the fans have to make a pick between a big match and the possibility of a big match. This has always been a weak point in TNA’s product that they will need to learn from.

Live versus Taped Shows

Yet another problem in the face-off was that half the time, TNA was taped against the always live WWE show. Live shows create a buzz where you don’t know ahead of time what will happen. When you tape a show, people know what will happen on it and can miss it in favor of the Live Show. Should TNA return to Mondays in the future, they will need to do so on a 100% Live basis. The lack of being live on their move back to Thursdays is what I will miss most about this experiment.

In the end I will say this was a fun time period in TNA’s history. They went head to head with a giant and at times presented a more entertaining product. Hopefully this experiment will put things in perspective that the fans don’t need them to compete with Raw, but be there as an alternative to Raw. Spike is still solidly in the corner of TNA, and they will celebrate their homecoming on May 13, a little over two months since the experiment began. It was fun while it lasted, but now that its over, its time to build off of what they learned.

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