Source: TNAStars.com
The final cable rating and viewership estimates for last night’s episode of iMPACT Wrestling on Spike TV are now available. The numbers show that last night’s episode just barely increased in total estimated viewership, but slightly dropped in the final ratings number. Last night’s episode of the show scored a final cable rating of 1.07 which represented about 1,444,000 viewers over the course of the show’s two hours.
Last night’s final rating is 0.17 of a point higher and approximately 38,000 more viewers than last week’s episode, which scored a final cable rating of 1.16 with an average audience of 1,443,000 viewers.
When we know more about how last night’s show scored hour-by-hour, we’ll post it here so check back on Monday! Last night’s episode of iMPACT Wrestling on Spike TV had more total viewers than prime time and late night programming on other cable channels with a national audience including FX, MTV (Beavis & Butthead), the Cartoon Network, Bravo, Discovery, Comedy Central, ABC Family, WE, TBS, the Food Network, History, HGTV, and Tru TV – among others.
It is also worth noting that the show’s total viewership is hard to estimate. This is because DVR+3 figures (the amount of people who watch the show on their DVR within three days of recording it) usually adds about 200,000 more viewers in addition to the viewership number reported above. Plus, Spike.com uploads each full episode of iMPACT Wrestling to its website for free online streaming for a three month period. The online streaming versions of the show typically generate about 20,000 views before they are taken down (some episodes have many more viewers, others have less). However, there is no way to know whether or not DVR or online viewers are part of the original viewership estimate, so these figures are rarely reported by wrestling websites (but they’re still good to know!).
If you’re interested in iMPACT Wrestling’s ratings performance for 2010 and 2011, then check out TNAStars.com’s Ratings War area. In the Ratings War area you can see a comparison of iMPACT Wrestling vs. Monday Night RAW from the spring of 2010 and iMPACT Wrestling vs. Superstars from all of 2010 and the first part of 2011. Also, you can see a comparison of iMPACT Wrestling’s viewership numbers from week-to-week in 2011. Enjoy!
In the past, I’ve written about the causes of weird discrepancies like this week’s final viewership and ratings numbers. However, I thought a quick rehash would be helpful.
A cable television show’s final ratings number is not solely driven by the total amount of people who watch the show when it airs. That is only a part of the final equation. The final equation takes into account how many people are watching cable television during that same time period. When there are more people watching cable television in general and your show maintains its regular viewership (or even grows that viewership a little bit), chances are that your final ratings number is going to go down because of the increased number of people watching cable.
By way of illustration… a Sunday night cable show may always have one million viewers. Then the Super Bowl comes around and the amount of people watching television that night skyrockets so, naturally, the amount of people watching cable (flipping around during commercials, half-time, or after the game) skyrockets. But if the cable show maintains its regular one million viewers, its ratings are going to tank for the night of the Super Bowl because even though more eyes were watching cable, those eyes didn’t gravitate towards this particular show.
Incidentally, this is why iMPACT Wrestling and WWE try to put their mainstream, big story, Knockouts, etc. segments during the last few minutes of the first hour and the first few minutes of the second hour. It’s also why both promotions maintain a 2 – 3 minute overrun after 11:00pm EST. Those are the time periods when there are more people flipping around the tube and thus more of an opportunity to grab a lapsed fan or non-fan’s attention to your product. If you grab them for a minute or so, your viewership goes up for the night and, ultimately, you have a better chance at getting a higher ratings number for the night.