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The following is an excerpt from the new book, 'BEYOND NITRO' by Guy Evans and is being reprinted with permission.
In the 12 months prior to April 2012 – a period encapsulating episodes of Impact occurring between Lockdown 2011 and Lockdown 2012 – TNA’s flagship show recorded a 1.13 average in the Nielsen ratings. Subsequently, the next 12 months of Impact (episodes occurring between Lockdown 2012 to just-after Lockdown 2013, due to the latter event occurring in March) produced an average of 1.01, representing a 10.6% drop in relative audience share. Therefore, while the show likely benefited from a more defined structure – particularly in terms of its overall coherence – it failed to attract a new crop of viewers (and, in fact, as evidenced by the numbers, the opposite effect had ultimately transpired).
With this lack of ratings growth came a renewed focus on another oft-derided constraint of the TNA business model. Since June 2004, the company had taped and aired its programming from Universal Studio Florida’s Soundstage 21 in Orlando, colloquially referred to as The Impact Zone. With a maximum capacity of only 1400 fans, the familiar old venue (the site of numerous WCW syndicated shows in the ‘90s, incidentally) contrasted unfavorably against the bright, enormous, and stunningly well-lit arenas utilized by WWE (and WCW, for that matter, during its heyday). A certain school of thought developed that TNA, despite possessing a clear financial incentive to record its shows from the soundstage, was perhaps destined to be limited by this ongoing reality. On October 18, 2012, a Twitter user messaged Hulk Hogan to communicate that sentiment. “I love TNA bro,” wrote the fan, “but you gotta get out of the impact zone, it’s killing the product.” Hogan replied in the affirmative:
Agreed…tell Dixie. HH
“For years,” explains Scott Fishman, the executive in charge of production at Spike TV, “TNA basically had a residency at Universal. The negative there is that you’re paying Universal for the lease of the space, and you’re not making gate [revenue], because the audience were actually park guests. So you’re paying out of pocket from the space…and by the way, there’s an advantage to that. [At] Sound Stage 21, we never had to take down a lighting grid. We didn’t have to take down ‘PA’. We didn’t have to take down scaffolding for the hard camera, or screens – or anything else. You walk in – you turn the lights on – and you’re ready to go. You’re also saving a lot of money on ‘load in’ and ‘load out’ [instead of] moving around every week.
“But I think it probably got to the point,” continues Fishman, “just from a business model standpoint…TNA figured, ‘You know what? We gotta figure out how to put this thing on the road, because we gotta start making money [from the television tapings].
“So now it was going to cost a little bit more to tour – because now you’ve got trucking that you’ve got to deal with…you’ve got to do set up and break down…you could be [dealing with unions] which means fees for labor could be higher…but I think TNA looked at it said, ‘We gotta put our foot in this water. We’re paying Universal. We’re not making gate. We’re doing minimum on ‘merch’…because these are park people.’ They were coming in because it was hot outside, and so they could sit in the air conditioning for two hours. They weren’t coming in because they just loved Kurt Angle and they had to have his T-shirt! So [the thought process was], ‘Let’s take this thing on the road, and although it’s gonna cost us a little bit more – because of trucking, labor and all the [aforementioned factors], maybe we can make it up – and then some – if we can get the proper gate.’”
And so, from the spring of 2013 onwards, Spike agreed to support TNA’s ambitious new initiative, partially offsetting some of the increased production costs that came with the move. In the wider press, the decision to take Impact! on the road was advertised – similar to the early 2010 expansion to Mondays – as a decidedly ‘permanent’ strategy. “This is a tremendous step forward for TNA,” promised Dixie Carter in a statement. “Fans from around the world have been coming to us at Universal for more than eight years to be a part of the ‘Impact Wrestling’ audience. It’s now time for us to take the ‘Impact Wrestling’ television cameras to them. This is a very important next evolution for the company.”
“I [recall] that Dixie came to us,” says Kevin Kay, formerly the President of Spike TV, “and said, ‘We got to get out of Orlando.’ I think we had [also] given her the feedback that, ‘Look, the show looks the same every week. The people in the audience are the same. They’re the same people that are trying to get out of the park to find shade…and air conditioning.”
“It was smart for their brand to get out [and tour],” adds David Schwarz, Spike’s former VP of communications, on TNA’s decision. “As great as having one place was budgetarily…to really connect with fans…there’s nothing like being in somebody’s hometown, [or having fans] experience it live. I think that was the strategic decision…and I thought it was a good one.”
Not everyone was convinced. “If you have a product that you produce often,” argues Keith Mitchell, still commandeering the proceedings from the TNA production truck, “your smartest way of doing it is with the least amount of expense.
“There’s a question I used to ask people,” continues Mitchell, “when we were discussing where we were going to do the show from. I’d ask, ‘What’s your favorite TV show?’ [They would respond], and I’d say, ‘Well, where do they shoot that?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know’ [would be the reply]. I’d say, ‘Well, it really isn’t all that super important…is it?’
“When you zoom in, you’re looking at a 20x20 foot ring – whether that ring is in Madison Square Garden, or whether it’s Wembley Arena, or if it’s in Universal Studios. You still have a 20x20 canvas – figuratively and literally! That’s not changing. What you do between that 20x20 canvas is what determines whether or not people watch the show – not where that canvas is put up.
“I think when you have a solid following of viewers, the reasons why they watch your show are varied…but seldom is it that it’s coming from Chicago, [for example] – as opposed to Universal Studios in Orlando. I mean…you’re sucked into the conflict, and the substance of the show itself. [Moreover], I knew that it was going to be extremely expensive. I knew we were going to have to work our asses off, and I knew that our numbers were not going to improve all that much.”
Nonetheless, the plan was soon approved – and TNA started touring the country for Impact. Looking back on the period, Mitchell estimates that the production costs associated with each excursion registered around $125-150,000 dollars per outing. “It was not really comparable to the cost of a Nitro,” he explains, “because our staff was much smaller. We were much more of a ‘guerrilla production’ as opposed to a big, beefed up army that Nitro got to be. The lighting rigs were much smaller [in comparison]. The staging elements were different. The pyro budget was smaller. We didn’t use production trucks that were cutting edge [either]. [Nonetheless], the cost of doing a show on the road – where you have to move everything you own across the country, set it all up…and take it all back…it’s an enormous difference between having everything set up in a studio year-round.”
Ultimately, the “next evolution” for TNA wouldn’t last long, and on November 21, 2013, the company returned back to Universal in Orlando. “TNA [eventually] looked at it,” says Fishman, “and went, ‘You know what? This isn’t working. We got more money going out the door than we did when we were at Universal, and we’re not necessarily taking [enough in]. Why don’t we go back and do the Universal thing?’”
“It cost more money to be on the road,” states Kay matter-of-factly, “and we weren’t seeing any ratings change. It sort of fizzled out for that reason. Our license fee was fixed with them, but they were spending more of their license fee on traveling and all that stuff…[as opposed] to talent. It wasn’t moving the needle in the way that they hoped – or the way we had hoped – so they ended up back in Orlando.”
“It had a horrible effect,” sighs Mitchell in summarizing the move, “and I could have predicted it – in fact, I probably did on multiple occasions. I knew that Panda wasn’t going to spend that much money [indefinitely].”
The above is an excerpt from the new book, 'BEYOND NITRO' by Guy Evans, available now.
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