TNA Impact!
Genre	Professional wrestling, Hardcore wrestling, Lucha libre, sports entertainment
Created by	Jeff Jarrett Vince Russo Dutch Mantel
Starring	Total Nonstop Action Wrestling roster
Opening theme	"Cross the Line" by AD/AM[1]
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	285
Production
Location(s)	Impact! Zone
Camera setup	Multiple-camera setup
Running time	88 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Fox Sports Net (2004 – 2005) Webcast/Urban America Television (limited markets) (2005) Spike (2005 – present)
Original run	June 4, 2004 (2004-06-04) – present
External links
Official website

TNA Impact! (stylized as "TNA iMPACT!") is a professional wrestling television program for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) that currently airs on in the United States and Canada on Spike^[2], and airs on Bravo and Virgin1 in the United Kingdom. TNA Impact is filmed at the Impact! Zone (Soundstage 21 at the Universal Studios Florida theme park of Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida).^[3] Tapings of the show are held biweekly on Mondays and Tuesdays and admission is free.^[4] The show's current opening theme is "Cross the Line" by AD/AM.^[1]

[edit] History

[edit] Fox Sports Net era: May 2004 - May 2005

In May 2004, TNA announced that they had negotiated a television deal with Fox Sports Net (FSN) where they would get a one-hour timeslot on Fridays in most markets, putting TNA on unrestricted cable and satellite for the first time.^[5] TNA began taping TNA Impact that month and aired the first episode on June 4, 2004. Impact was also syndicated throughout Canada (on RDS) and Europe (on The Wrestling Channel and, also later, both Eurosport Bravo and Bravo 2). TNA's contract with FSN expired in May 2005 and was not renegotiated, with the last episode airing on May 27, 2005. The series as a whole gained little success, averaging a 0.2 household rating.

[edit] Webcasts

TNA was left with no television deal and, therefore, had no means of promoting their monthly pay-per-views (although Impact did continue to air on certain regional networks in place of TNA Xplosion). On July 1, TNA began offering new episodes of Impact through their website, first using BitTorrent downloads, then by streaming through RealPlayer.^[6][7] To save on production costs, four hours of Impact were recorded in a day and made available throughout the subsequent month.^[8]

[edit] Spike era

At the same time, TNA began seeking a more profitable television outlet, finally negotiated a Saturday night timeslot with Spike TV, now known simply as Spike, and started airing Impact on October 1, 2005. Two episodes were taped every other Tuesday, airing them on the subsequent Saturday.^[9] TNA's syndication contracts for Impact on local TV channels, from after the FSN contract, were converted to contracts for TNA's syndicated show, TNA Xplosion. They are no longer paying for the timeslot, though Spike controls their advertising revenue.^[10] Because of viewership growth, Impact was moved to Thursdays in April 2006, and later to an earlier primetime slot in November. Tapings were moved to Tuesdays.^[11]

In June 2006, episodes of Impact became available at the iTunes Store.^[12]

[edit] Two hour expansion

Impact expanded to two hours on October 4, 2007, still starting at the same time.^[13]

On January 17, 2008, Spike presented an event entitled "Global iMPACT!", which featured TNA wrestlers in matches against talent of New Japan Pro Wrestling.^[14]

On March 27, Impact! aired live for the first time in the show's history in its regular timeslot.

Announced in a release on TNAwrestling.com on April 2, 2008, TNA came to terms on a deal that had "Impact" airing in Australia starting April 5. Up until then, TNA had only broadcast their monthly pay-per-view events on Main Event. Impact now airs every Saturday at 10:00 p.m and every Tuesday at 3:30 p.m on FOX8.

On October 23, 2008, TNA aired its first Impact! outside of the Impact! Zone in Orlando. It was broadcasted from Las Vegas, Nevada. TNA also made the transition to HD and announced that all Impacts! after this would be broadcast in High Definition.

On December 5, 2009, TNA announced that they would have a 3-hour live special on January 4, 2010 and would go up against WWE Raw. It was also confirmed to be the live debut of Hulk Hogan in TNA.

[edit] Content

Impact generally features four to seven matches over the course of the two hour show, as well as numerous interviews and segments interspersed between the matches.^[17] Due to the nature of the wrestling business, advertisements for merchandise and upcoming pay-per-view events often serve as bookmarks for the commercial segments.

When Impact was on Fox Sports Net, all matches had a time limit (10 minutes for normal singles matches and 20 for tag team matches and the main event) and the station's Fox Box was used.^[18] In the event of a time limit draw, the winner was determined by the NWA Championship Committee, a group consisting of three veteran wrestlers. Since leaving the channel, TNA discarded the time limit concept, but in late 2009, TNA brought back the time limits.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Roster

[edit] Commentators

[edit] Management Director

[edit] Special Episodes

[edit] Recurring segments

[edit] International broadcasters

In addition to being broadcast on Spike in the United States,^[26] TNA Impact! is also broadcast internationally in many different countries.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Professional wrestling portal

• Official website at Spike
• TNA Impact! at the Internet Movie Database
• TNA Impact! at TV.com