Interesting Destination America News That Could Affect ROH and TNA

[Big Red Machine]

Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

There was a change at the top at Destination America as Mark Etkind, who had been the station’s General Manager, moved to take a similar role with The Science Channel a few weeks ago. Jane Latman is the new General Manager. She is evaluating all programming on the network. Because both wrestling shows do well above the station average, a new person in charge could have a different opinion than Etkind, who had made the call to eliminate wrestling. The problem with TNA was never the ratings, but the costs involved. With ROH, the costs involved weren’t an issue, but when they were moved out of prime time, it was clearly not a good sign of what they thought about the ratings. Etkind was quick on the draw when it came to ratings, as when TNA did a low number, they started pulling back quickly on replays and eliminating shoulder programming. As of the last word, TNA was going to be off the station at some point in January, after the September thing became a legal issue of some sort. ROH is under contract until early December and at this point has not been renewed. ROH is under the impression as of this week that Latman has not made a decision on their future. For what it’s worth, an advertiser was looking at buying time on DA in early 2016 on the wrestling shows and was told at the time (this was just before Etkind left the GM position about a month ago) that they would not be having any wrestling on the station at the time, so the advertising side was under the impression neither show was being kept. The advertising side had gotten the same memo we reported regarding TNA being gone at the end of September, before it was extended a few months. Among the higher-ups at the station, wrestling is said to be such a low priority that it’s something never brought up or talked about

[cero2k]

"Among the higher-ups at the station, wrestling is said to be such a low priority that it’s something never brought up or talked about"

what type of fans are we, that wrestling is lower priority over Alien BBQ Stories or Ghost Big Foot Haunted BBQs?

[Big Red Machine]

"Among the higher-ups at the station, wrestling is said to be such a low priority that it’s something never brought up or talked about"

what type of fans are we, that wrestling is lower priority over Alien BBQ Stories or Ghost Big Foot Haunted BBQs?

It's because they want wrestling for the numbers. They don't care what actually happens. If ROH is pulling above station average numbers with one airing at 11 pm that gets ZERO hype from the network and costs them no money, why should they worry about it?