WWE Impact Live
By Scott Keith on 17 June 2018
Impact is averaging around 300,000 weekly viewers on Pop TV. The average viewership on FS1? 180,000 viewers.
Why wouldn’t they purchase Impact for peanuts and replace the 205 Live taping after Smackdown with Impact Live? You have a program that is currently getting around 300k viewers on a horrible 3rd rate network that most people don’t even know exists. They’ve proven they can maintain that number with a horrible stigma attached to them and without the WWE machine behind them. You’re replacing one irrelevant brand (205) with another irrelevant brand (Impact) but with the potential to make money. Really nothing to lose.
You now have a 3rd live tv brand to shop around to networks, FS1 in particular which jump at the chance of at least 300k viewers after losing UFC programming. You now own the tape library instead of constantly having to go to Anthem to license the footage. You get all of the Impact contracts and mix them with the 20 guys on 205 Live to form your roster.
Realistically though, the TNA library is the only thing they’ve got worthwhile to offer. WWE has already picked off any of the talent they actually want, and if anyone cared about the Impact brand they would have found a better TV deal already. I can see buying them and sticking them in the Network, but not seriously using them as a real brand.