TNA has landed a major television deal with AMC.
Jon Alba of Sports Illustrated first reported on the deal weeks ago, and it was made official on December 2. TNA will air on AMC and stream on AMC+ on Thursday nights at 9 PM ET to 11 PM ET. The show will now be known as Thursday Night Impact.
There were immediate rumors that NXT/WWE were terminating their partnership with TNA, but TNA reps spoke with Fightful and vehemently denied such claims. They went as far as to say that WWE even aided in TNA landing the television deal. Nobody we spoke to in TNA had been told the partnership was ending, but talent we spoke to said they hoped that "catering to NXT" wouldn't be happening. WWE sources confirmed to Fightful Select they knew the deal was coming ahead of the announcement.
The announcement itself noted that the show would be live on January 15. It was specified to Fightful Select that the subsequent episodes will be a mix of live and taped, and the belief internally in TNA is that there are a certain number of shows they're required to do live. We also followed up on why the company went dark for a month after Bound For Glory. We weren't given an official answer, but those we heard back from believed it was for budget reasons and to finalize the TV deal.
We're told work started in the Spring to nail down this deal, and a very close circle of people knew the details behind it.
The reaction from staff and roster was unanimously positive from those we heard back from, with a lot of excitement. A common hope from the roster and staff was that creative would get a big step up with the platform expanding. Outside of that, it was sunshine and rainbows from the people within the company. They were briefed on the news on the morning of December 2 ahead of the announcement.
Last month, Fightful spoke to TNA President Carlos Silva about Nielsen's new Big Data + Panel numbers being initially unfavorable to pro wrestling content. At the time, Silva said it hadn't come up in conversations and he wasn't familiar with what we were referencing. It is important to note that AMC+ numbers are unlikely to be included in the viewership totals that emerge on a weekly basis.
A reminder, Fightful has a TNA post show every Thursday.
We will update this article as we get more info
