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Anthem Media, the parent company of Impact Wrestling, has come to terms on a deal to purchase AXS TV, PWInsider.com has confirmed. The agreement was reached just minutes ago after a long negotiation.
The deal will, obviously, see Impact Wrestling migrate from The Pursuit Channel to AXS, where far more viewers will be able to view the series. There have been plans in place for secondary Impact programming to debut on Pursuit as well.
This move places Impact Wrestling on the best TV platform it has landed upon in forever as the jumping around from cable network to cable network, something that has been going on for the last five years after SpikeTV pulled a multi-year deal from Dixie Carter, at the time President of Impact, when she declined to take less money in 2014. Since then, Impact has landed on Destination American, Pop TV and The Pursuit Channel, all with dwindling audiences after each move. This gives Impact a chance to reverse that trend.
While AXS does not give Impact the entire cable TV and satellite universes, it’s a much larger cable network than they had been on and now they can move forward without a “gun to their head” mentality waiting for the inevitable.
As PWInsider.com reported back in July, there had been discussions going on for months attempting to secure the purchase of AXS, which would give Anthem Media a much needed footprint in the United States. The initial hope was to have had the deal done by early July and had that timeline taken place as hoped, Impact Wrestling planned to announce they were moving to AXS the Monday after Slammiversary.
We have been told that Anthem's purchase will not change New Japan Pro Wrestling or WOW's status with AXS, but obviously that can change. Impact sources are confident in stating that AXS programming will remain in place as it currently exists, although Anthem-owned content, including Impact, will soon migrate over. Impact Wrestling, under its current management team of Scott D'Amore, Don Callis and Ed Nordholm, have long sought to build a working relationship with New Japan, which has distanced itself in recent months from Ring of Honor, so owning their TV platform gives Impact a nice advantage as New Japan works towards running more in the United States.
AXS TV, formerly HD Net, was launched in January 2001. While known as HD Net, the network aired ROH on HD Net for a year. It was rebranded as AXS TV in July 2012.
We will update with additional information as it is confirmed.
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