Tag: TV

WWE announces new TV deal in Germany

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

WWE announced a new television deal in Germany for both Raw and Smackdown after the current deals expire in March 2017.

7Sports will be airing both shows, making it the first time WWE has been able to get over-the-air deals for both of its flagship shows in that market. 

They will moving from Tele 5 (Raw) and Pro 7 Maxx (Smackdown). The former announced the decision last week not to renew its contract.

WWE claims they have a combined average of 500,000 viewers per week in the country.

“We are proud that we were able to secure this deal for Pro Sieben MAXX,” said 7Sports CEO Zeliko Karajica. “This gives us the opportunity to extend our WWE coverage and make sports entertainment even more popular in Germany.”

“ProSieben MAXX hare our vision and passion for engaging and entertaining WWE fans,” said Ed Wells, WWE Executive Vice President International. “This partnership creates our primary destination in ProSieben MAXX for fans to enjoy our unique blend of action-packed family entertainment.

ProSieben MAXX will also be a marketing partner in house shows on 11/2 in Frankfort at Festhalle, 11/3 in Munich at Olympiahalle, 11/8 in Oberhausen at the Koenig-Pisner Arena and 11/9 in Berlin at the MercedesBenz Arena..

TNA Impact will no longer have second Tuesday airing

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

TNA Wrestling, effective immediately, will no longer air a Tuesday night replay on Pop TV.

The only airing of the show tomorrow will be at 9 p.m. Eastern and 6 p.m. Pacific time.

Impact will have a second airing on Pop TV on Saturday mornings at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time.

But any change of time slots isn’t the best thing right now when they are in negotiations to sell a stake in the company and it’s most valuable asset was nationwide prime time coverage, and the new time slots aren’t strong for the West Coast.

TNA has no house shows scheduled at this point and it’s next TV tapings are 4/21 to 4/24 in Orlando at Universal.

TNA moves to POP TV in January

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

TNA announced Thursday morning that it has signed a deal with POP TV for Impact, which will start on the station on January 5th, 2016, in a Tuesday from 9-11 p.m. time slot. Dixie Carter announced the news on Twitter stating that they are now on a station that reaches 85 million homes.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter had reported that POP TV, which has been airing Paragon Pro Wrestling weekly as a time buy, along with WGN America, were in negotiations for TNA. Of the two, the POP TV deal was considered the weaker station overall even though both stations were in similar amounts of homes.

It is an upgrade as far as reach is concerned, although POP TV is in closer to 75 million homes right now as compared to 57 million for Destination America. Finances were not disclosed which is the key when it comes to TNA, because there is little revenue coming in with the exception of selling the television show, since they almost never do live events that tickets are sold to, and PPV numbers are weak. TNA wil remain on Destination America through the end of 2015.

In a related note, Paragon announced today that their final date on POP TV will be November 21st. They are moving their programming to various platforms including Tuff-TV, Fight Net, You Too America and WADL-TV in Detroit, MI.