UK TNA Ratings?

[The_Main_Event]

Hi everybody, I saw on the WZ homepage that TNA got a Summer-high rating of 1.71 this week in America, and this got me wondering what the ratings are like in the UK?

Coming from the UK I know quite a few people who watch TNA because they like wrestling but don't have access to Sky Sports (which WWE is aired on in the UK) so if somebody hasn't got Sky but want to watch wrestling TNA is their only option with TNA being broadcast Challenge which is available on Freeview, adding when TNA toured the UK earlier this year the iMpact shows recorded had good sized crowds

The only problem with Challenge is it only has old TV programmes, which I'd imagine doesn't atteract viewer-ship in general, so people may not know about TNA.

So yeah if anybody could possibly tell me or link me with information on TNA's ratings in the UK it'd be much appreciated.

 

[Dizzy]

Their ratings in the UK is way better than in the US. Usually, they are on par or beating WWE's shows in ratings in the UK most of the time but most people will say it's because the channel TNA airs on is a basic channel and the WWE channel is a paid subscription channel.

Which is an total excuse. Raw has usually always aired on a cable network while SmackDown has usually aired on a basic non-cable channel and Raw has historically drawn more viewers than SmackDown.

TNA's good ratings in the UK allows them to air more shows on the network like Xplosion (not so good ratings wise), TNA PPVs (draws very well), they even air specials in the UK.

This site usually covers UK and US TNA ratings
http://www.tnainsider.com/

Quite honestly, the USA is the only country that hasn't fully bought into the TNA product yet. the UK, Australia and India are established homes for the company thus far.

 

[The_Main_Event]

Their ratings in the UK is way better than in the US. Usually, they are on par or beating WWE's shows in ratings in the UK most of the time but most people will say it's because the channel TNA airs on is a basic channel and the WWE channel is a paid subscription channel.

Which is an total excuse. Raw has usually always aired on a cable network while SmackDown has usually aired on a basic non-cable channel and Raw has historically drawn more viewers than SmackDown.

TNA's good ratings in the UK allows them to air more shows on the network like Xplosion (not so good ratings wise), TNA PPVs (draws very well), they even air specials in the UK.

This site usually covers UK and US TNA ratings
http://www.tnainsider.com/

Quite honestly, the USA is the only country that hasn't fully bought into the TNA product yet. the UK, Australia and India are established homes for the company thus far.

Thanks for that it's been added to my bookmarked sites so I'll have a look now and then to see how the ratings are.

It puzzles me why the US haven't got behind the product (I watch both TNA/WWE personally) seeing as TNA do put on good solid shows on, sometimes a lot better than RAW, I'm not one to compare one to the other though, I tend to watch both for what they are entertainment.

 

[obamartins]

According to the Broadcasters Audience Research Boards weekly reach figures Sky Sports channels are drawing over 6 million viewers (6,102,000) whereas Challenge draws just over 4 Million (4,159,000).

The fact that Challenge is on Freeview doesn’t actually give TNA an immediate advantage, in fact Sky Sports is a much more well known channel, not to mention an established destination for wrestling programming.

I live in the UK. TNA draws very well in the UK & out performs WWE. I know im going to hear argument WWE is on at 2am....yes but they also show replays throughout week. TNA also shows replays.

Simply google "UK TNA ratings" various wrestling websites report ratings all the time.

According to the lastest issue of Powerslam Magazine:

- Destination X drew 181,000 viewers
- July 12th Impact Wrestling drew 245,000 viewers (top rated show on channel that week)
- July 22nd Impact Wrestling drew 236,000 viewers (top rated show on channel that week)

WWE RAW/Smackdown UK average is about 160,000 viewers.

 

[harrythem]

A good source is Power Slam magazine, it has the monthly viewing figures for both companies. Here are the UK figures from the start of July:
Live Raw on July 9th/early hours of 10th - 166,000 (highest show on Sky Sports 3 that week)
Smackdown on friday 13th got 119,000
Money In The Bank on July 15/16 - 230,000 (highest show on Sky Sports 2 that week)
Live Raw July 16/17 - 182,000 (highest show on Sky Sports 3 that week)
Smackdown on July 20th - 163,000.

July 11th Destination X - 181,000 viewers
July 15th Impact - 245,000 (highest show on Challenge that week)
July 22nd Impact - 236,000 (highest show on Challenge that week)/

As you can see Impact does regularly draw higher ratings than WWE in England, no question. However I would agree that it being on prime-time (Sunday at 9 is pretty prime time in England. If it's good enough for Sherlock on BBC 1 then it's good enough for Impact) and on a channel that everyone (deffo since the digital switch-over) gets helps. No questions Impact pisses over SmackDown and there are no excuses for that as, last time I checked, Smack Down airs on Sky 1 (which is pretty all encompassing) but, Raw there's the whole subscription service issue. It's not a full excuse but it does factor into the WWE ratings.

Although, with the figures wrestling gets on Sky, I can't see why the BBC or ITV doesn't think wrestling can help their networks. I get Channel 4 and 5 not being interested after being dealt shite in their previous deals with WWF and WCW, but it's a new day and wrestling draws well in England.

 

[CraigThe13th]

I would just like to point out that Sky One is not a free channel you have to have a Sky subscripton to watch it and if Smackdown was shown on say BBC4 if would piss on TNA's ratings from a great height. I personally only watch it because it's on freeview when no other wrestling is and there is no South Park and Family Guy on at that moment.

 

[Brother Love]

Hi everybody, I saw on the WZ homepage that TNA got a Summer-high rating of 1.71 this week in America, and this got me wondering what the ratings are like in the UK?

If this is the article on WZ you are talking about,
http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/260...ating-show-draws-highest-number-of-the-summer
the ratings were 1.15 and not 1.71. And I don't think I've ever seen TNA have a rating above a 1.47 which was what it was for Hogans debut in TNA. They have scored anywhere between .9 and 1.2 for the most part all year with an occasional show a tad higher or lower.

 

[Skinsley]

TNA beats WWE in the ratings almost every week in the UK based on it being free to watch and shown first time pre-recorded at a normal hour.

WWE is on Sky Sports, which costs money, and is shown live at 1am/2am.
TNA's UK viewers mostly consist of casual viewers who may just be watching because nothing else is on at the time, where WWE fans in the UK are mostly wrestling fans who go out of their way to see the show.

 

[Ace630]

A good source is Power Slam magazine, it has the monthly viewing figures for both companies. Here are the UK figures from the start of July:
Live Raw on July 9th/early hours of 10th - 166,000 (highest show on Sky Sports 3 that week)
Smackdown on friday 13th got 119,000
Money In The Bank on July 15/16 - 230,000 (highest show on Sky Sports 2 that week)
Live Raw July 16/17 - 182,000 (highest show on Sky Sports 3 that week)
Smackdown on July 20th - 163,000.

July 11th Destination X - 181,000 viewers
July 15th Impact - 245,000 (highest show on Challenge that week)
July 22nd Impact - 236,000 (highest show on Challenge that week)/

As you can see Impact does regularly draw higher ratings than WWE in England, no question. However I would agree that it being on prime-time (Sunday at 9 is pretty prime time in England. If it's good enough for Sherlock on BBC 1 then it's good enough for Impact) and on a channel that everyone (deffo since the digital switch-over) gets helps. No questions Impact pisses over SmackDown and there are no excuses for that as, last time I checked, Smack Down airs on Sky 1 (which is pretty all encompassing) but, Raw there's the whole subscription service issue. It's not a full excuse but it does factor into the WWE ratings.

Although, with the figures wrestling gets on Sky, I can't see why the BBC or ITV doesn't think wrestling can help their networks. I get Channel 4 and 5 not being interested after being dealt shite in their previous deals with WWF and WCW, but it's a new day and wrestling draws well in England.

I doubt bbc or itv could outbid sky for the rights to it. you have seen it with football for years and most recently F1. Sky dominates the sporting market and i doubt bbc or itv could match their offers to sky

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

I'm pretty sure Impact is Challenge's highest rated show by far now. It was a channel that's dedicated to showing old repeats of game shows. Now if you go on their website you can see that they have changed it half of the site is now dedicated to TNA.

I had no idea on the actual numbers so cheers to obmartins and harrythem. I'll have to pick up Power Slam again someday.

 

[wooooo]

I definitely think WWE being on pay tv is an excuse as to why the free to air TNA gets better ratings.

I watch TNA because it's the only wrestling I can see on TV, if Smackdown was on a freeview channel I'm positive it would get more viewers.

I still remember when Channel 4 had Sunday night heat and 4 ppv's a year, those were the good old days lol.

 

[vampirek]

I definitely think WWE being on pay tv is an excuse as to why the free to air TNA gets better ratings.

I watch TNA because it's the only wrestling I can see on TV, if Smackdown was on a freeview channel I'm positive it would get more viewers.

I still remember when Channel 4 had Sunday night heat and 4 ppv's a year, those were the good old days lol.

Those were terrible years and Channel 4 ruined the Royal Rumble single handed by delaying it and still putting commercials inbetween the match itself.

TNA has a wider audience and unknown to many also appears on the Extreme Sports Channel, which would give it an extra fan or two (seeing I have yet to come across anyone who has even turned over to this channel). Not just this Sky treats WWE very well, Raw is repeated, Smackdown is repeated and offers so many different shows that you can catch up using shows like AfterBurn rather than watch Smackdown for example and so on. In otherwords why look at one program and say one gets bigger ratings without taking into account over facts so as catchup shows.

 

[rge2010]

Those were terrible years and Channel 4 ruined the Royal Rumble single handed by delaying it and still putting commercials inbetween the match itself.

WRONG! If you remember, Mae Young flashed her saggy titties and this was shown LIVE on Channel 4. Channel 4 took exception to this and thus they began to delay future PPV's (think they had 4 a year)

WWE would prosper much more as a company over here in the UK if they were on terrestrial TV.

 

[Dilligaf]

Channel 4 getting the rights to those few ppv's was a clusterfuck of a mistake, and then Sky had to come in at the last minute and buy the rights to the RR, and thats when the shit hit the fan when it came to putting ppv's on sky sports.

The big 4 were always on sky sports and then sky decided "right, fuck this now we're gonna cash in on this and put them on box office" and then they thought they were actually giving us something when they put the lesser named ppvs on sky sports.

Now most of them are now on box office, and sky keep putting their prices up every year (along with all the other cable/satellite) providers and im having to resort to DL all WWE programming as I only watched sky sports twice a week for WWE. As I didnt see the point of paying for the whole sky sports package just to watch WWE twice a week.

I doubt bbc or itv could outbid sky for the rights to it. you have seen it with football for years and most recently F1. Sky dominates the sporting market and i doubt bbc or itv could match their offers to sky

BBC reckon they cant afford to have all the F1 races live, but then they can afford to send their presenters to races just to present the shitty highlights, like Ace said "how they gonna afford the rights to show WWE".

 

[ShowOffRM]

The reason TNA do get higher ratings has nothing to do with the quality of programming.

First off all, the most obvious reason is that WWE airs on Sky Sports TV.

This costs £50 a month, so most do not have it, and the Sky Sports channel that airs Raw is not available on any other satellite company other than Sky, so those who have Virgin or BT can't watch Raw.

Now, Impact on the other hand airs on a channel which everyone who owns a TV has, so automatically a lot more can watch it and thus will watch it. Also, alot of wrestling fans who don't have Sky TV only have TNA as an option and thus watch this.

Next is the timing, Raw airs at 1AM -4AM, which is a pain in a butt and even then most who have Sky Sports because of this don't watch it, as even when whats on is good, it's hard to stay up at 4AM, especially on a Monday when you've probably had work for 7 hours. Whereas Impact airs at around 9AM which is pretty much prime time.

Then next is the fan base. Kids can't watch Raw because it airs too late for them, and considering that's a main WWE target audience, that's a lot of viewers they've lost.

 

[Mr Delinquent]

The ratings between Scotland and the U.S between TNA and WWE comes up quite a lot on this forum.

I would say that having TNA on Challenge tv here in Scotland and given that it is a freeview channel is an advantage but as pointed out by an earlier poster Sky Sports still has over 6 million viewers.

Sky +?

 

[suffolkspur]

The reason TNA do get higher ratings has nothing to do with the quality of programming.

First off all, the most obvious reason is that WWE airs on Sky Sports TV.

This costs £50 a month, so most do not have it, and the Sky Sports channel that airs Raw is not available on any other satellite company other than Sky, so those who have Virgin or BT can't watch Raw.

Now, Impact on the other hand airs on a channel which everyone who owns a TV has, so automatically a lot more can watch it and thus will watch it. Also, alot of wrestling fans who don't have Sky TV only have TNA as an option and thus watch this.

Next is the timing, Raw airs at 1AM -4AM, which is a pain in a butt and even then most who have Sky Sports because of this don't watch it, as even when whats on is good, it's hard to stay up at 4AM, especially on a Monday when you've probably had work for 7 hours. Whereas Impact airs at around 9AM which is pretty much prime time.

Then next is the fan base. Kids can't watch Raw because it airs too late for them, and considering that's a main WWE target audience, that's a lot of viewers they've lost.

Sorry to question just this post. You make similar points to a number of people in this thread but have all the points that i want to argue against in one post.

First just to make it perfectly clear Sky Sports "TV" does not cost £50 a month. Im assuming you didnt mean that but thats what you have implied. As a sky subscriber- a basic sky package costs £21.50 a month. Sky Sports is a premium channel so if you want to add this to your basic package you pay £42.50. Therefore Sky Sports costs an extra £21.50 a month.So yes there is an extra cost for this and obviously this will have some kind of impact on access to those who do not like sports (or do not want to pay extra to view them) but do like wrestling.

However as always with this kind of thread there seems to be an implied view that very few people have access to Sky Sports as you have to pay extra to view it. This is just not the case. Sky sports is a hugely popular package in the UK to add the basic entertainment package. Despite the fact you have to pay extra to view it, it gets far more viewers than Challenge TV on a daily basis which as you rightly point out is on freeview and therefore everyone in the uk can watch it. Lets not also discount the fact that, as much as having to pay for sky sports is going to rule out a number of viewers from watching WWE who do not like sports there is also likely to be a large number of people like myself who are into sports who will also like wrestling. A crossover demographic if you like.

Both Raw and smackdown are repeated a couple of times during the week so kids can watch it then. That also goes for people like myself who work and am not going to stay up till 2am in the morning to watch the live (raw only, this does not affect smackdown at all) show. To be honest its a poor excuse.

Lets just look at the evidence in this thread from a couple of posters.

One has posted that despite the fact that you have to pay more to watch Skysports it gets over 2 million more viewers than challenge on a weekly basis, meaning that more people are choosing to watch Skysports than Challenge and as such it actually reaches a wider potential audience than Challenge.

Another poster has shown that Money in the bank (on skysports) had 230,000 viewers in comparison to Destination X (free tv) which had 181,000. This goes to suggest that people if they want to do so can choose to watch WWE but more regularly choose to watch Impact. I'm one of those. Personally i think this whole argument is a cop out from people who for whatever reason can't accept that in some countries Impact is preferred over WWE. Its not that big of a deal but i guess some people just like to be tribal.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Further fact checking - I have Virgin Media (don't judge me) and, presumably through some manner of black magic, am perfectly capable of accessing Sky Sports 1 through 4. Yes, that means I can watch Raw, SmackDown, Superstars and, though I've never tried, NXT.

Challenge - the channel which we've established TNA airs on - is a real dump of a channel. TNA sticks out like a sore thumb; literally every other show is an old quiz show. One can only imagine what Sky, who own Challenge, thinks of wrestling fans. Sky likely sees us as jobless layabouts who like nothing more than to sit around all day in our pants, drinking tequila and watching old episodes of The Price is Right.

Ratings? Pfft. No idea. Being able to watch Impact less than three days after the US - let's talk about that.

 

[Rayne]

Which is an total excuse. Raw has usually always aired on a cable network while SmackDown has usually aired on a basic non-cable channel and Raw has historically drawn more viewers than SmackDown.

Which would be a valid comparison if the way cable networks were set up in the UK was similar to the way they are in the US, but since they aren't, it's not.

In the United States, there are very, very few channels which are broadcast for free. As a result, virtually everyone subscribes to some form of cable service. In the UK, there is a free cable service, and a paid cable service which is considered superior, but costly. As a result, paid cable penetration is nowhere near the levels it is at in the United States. (Ask a Brit how Freeview is paid for, nothing is really free.)

A more appropriate comparison would be to say that RAW is broadcast on a channel like HBO, while TNA is broadcast for free. I'm curious why the WWE hasn't gotten themselves on Freeview, as professional wrestling fans tend to come mostly from lower-income brackets. Perhaps they just aren't interested in heavy marketing in the UK. The road tour is an integral part of the WWE money-making machine; not so much for TNA, and touring overseas is an expensive proposition.