The primary way that television executives assess whether or not their programming is successful is by the final ratings number and viewership estimates that the program receives after each airing. This is no different in the world of professional wrestling. Below you can find links to the history of the brief Monday night ratings war between IMPACT WRESTLING and WWE RAW and the equally brief Thursday night ratings war between IMPACT WRESTLING and WWE Superstars. In fact, you can even find links to the data showing a comparison between the ratings of WWE Monday Night RAW and WCW Monday NITRO from the 1990s! This page is updated frequently, so please be sure to check back each week for the latest information on the ratings and viewership estimates for IMPACT WRESTLING. And don’t forget to read the note at the bottom of the page regarding DVR viewership!
2013 – Taking the Show on the Road and Going Back to 9:00PM
2012 – iMPACT Wrestling Goes Live and Starts an Hour Earlier
2011 – Winning the Thursday Night War; Building a Thursday Night Audience
2001 – WWE Purchases WCW; The War is Over
2000 – WWE RAW Goes Undefeated for a Second Year
1999 – WWE RAW is Undefeated for the Entire Year
1998 – After Years of Losing, WWE RAW Begins to Beat WCW NITRO
1997 – WCW NITRO Dominates the Ratings War
1996 – A Memorable Memorial Day Weekend Brings Us the nWo
1995 – The Ratings War Begins…
IMPACT Wrestling Arrives on Destination America (January 2015 – Present)
Starting in January 2015, IMPACT Wrestling moved its primary television show from Viacom’s Spike TV to the Discovery Channel’s Destination America. IMPACT Wrestling’s production agreement with Destination America includes not just its 2 hour flagship show, but a 2 hour encore of the show as well as weekend programming including the new Unlocked program and TNA’s Greatest Matches. IMPACT Wrestling enters 2015 with a variety of other changes including a new voice of TNA as Josh Matthews takes over from Mike Tenay. However, Tenay isn’t going too far away – he will host IMPACT Wrestling’s weekend program Unlocked which will include his unique perspective on backstage happenings in the company as well as additional content that is not aired during the IMPACT Wrestling broadcast. Matthews joins the returning Taz on commentary as IMPACT Wrestling also starts the year by moving from Wednesday to Friday night.
The biggest challenge that IMPACT WRESTLING will face on Destination America is coverage of American households. Not only did their prior agreement with Spike TV include coverage in Canada, but as of August 2013, Spike TV was available in 97,639,000 homes. As of the same month, Destination America was available in 59,616,000 homes. However, with more programming available to grab eyes on the weekends a West Coast show airing right after the original show airs, IMPACT Wrestling has a great opportunity to grow into the cable channel’s premier program.
 |
 |
 |
| January 7, 2015 |
0.46
|
Combined: 502,000 | Report
East Coast: 359,000 | West Coast: 143,000 |
|
Show Notes:
|
The January 7th episode aired live from the Manhattan Center in New York City, NY. It was the last IMPACT Wrestling episode to air on Wednesday night and the first to air on Destination America. | |
| January 16, 2015 |
0.28
|
Combined: 531,000 | Report
East Coast: 387,000 | West Coast: 144,000 |
|
Show Notes:
|
The January 16th episode was the first IMPACT Wrestling to air on Friday night, the show’s new time slot on Destination America. | |
| January 23, 2015 |
0.32
|
Combined: 603,000 | Report
East Coast: 517,000 | West Coast: 86,000 |
| January 30, 2015 |
0.28
|
Combined: 584,000 | Report
East Coast: 431,000 | West Coast: 153,000 |
| February 6, 2015 |
0.34
|
Combined: 691,000 | Report
East Coast: 525,000 | West Coast: 166,000 |
| February 13, 2015 |
0.29
|
Combined: 596,000 | Report
East Coast: 454,000 | West Coast: 142,000 |
| February 20, 2015 |
0.29
|
Combined: 577,000 | Report
East Coast: 453,000 | West Coast: 124,000 |
| February 27, 2015 |
0.24
|
Combined: 502,000 | Report
East Coast: 366,000 | West Coast: 136,000 |
| March 6, 2015 |
0.26
|
Combined: 583,000 | Report
East Coast: 421,000 | West Coast: 162,000 |
| March 13, 2015 |
0.23
|
Combined: 414,000 | Report
East Coast: 338,000 | West Coast: 76,000 |
| March 20, 2015 |
0.27
|
Combined: 546,000 | Report
East Coast: 403,000 | West Coast: 143,000 |
| March 27, 2015 |
0.29
|
Combined: 608,000 | Report
East Coast: 444,000 | West Coast: 164,000 |
| April 3, 2015 |
0.29
|
Combined: 596,000 | Report
East Coast: 443,000 | West Coast: 153,000 |
| April 10, 2015 |
0.27
|
Combined: 583,000 | Report
East Coast: 408,000 | West Coast: 175,000 |
| April 17, 2015 |
0.27
|
Combined: 572,000 | Report
East Coast: 401,000 | West Coast: 171,000 |
| April 24, 2015 |
0.26
|
Combined: 569,000 | Report
East Coast: 381,000 | West Coast: 188,000 |
| May 1, 2015 |
0.25
|
Combined: 549,000 | Report
East Coast: 418,000 | West Coast: 131,000 |
| May 8, 2015 |
0.24
|
Combined: 463,000 | Report
East Coast: 358,000 | West Coast: 105,000 |
| May 15, 2015 |
0.24
|
Combined: 520,000 | Report
East Coast: 395,000 | West Coast: 125,000 |
| May 22, 2015 |
0.15
|
Combined: 317,000 | Report
East Coast: 232,000 | West Coast: 85,000 |
|
Show Notes:
|
On May 22nd, a West Coast of TNA Slammiversary 2014 aired in the place of a new episode of IMPACT Wrestling. | |
| May 29, 2015 |
0.28
|
Combined: 570,000 | Report
East Coast: 413,000 | West Coast: 157,000 |
|
Show Notes:
|
The May 29th episode was the last IMPACT Wrestling to air on Friday night on Destination America. | |
| June 3, 2015 |
|
Combined: 369,000 | Report
East Coast: 297,000 | West Coast: 72,000 |
|
Show Notes:
|
The June 3rd episode was the first IMPACT Wrestling to air in the show’s new Wednesday night time slot on Destination America. | |
| June 10, 2015 |
|
Combined: 404,000 | Report
East Coast: 330,000 | West Coast: 74,000 |
| June 17, 2015 |
|
Combined: 449,000 | Report
East Coast: 347,000 | West Coast: 102,000 |
| June 24, 2015 |
|
Combined: 451,000 | Report
East Coast: 369,000 | West Coast: 82,000 |
| July 1, 2015 |
|
Combined: 318,000 | Report
East Coast: 267,000 | West Coast: 51,000 |
| July 8, 2015 |
|
Combined: 453,000 | Report
East Coast: 353,000 | West Coast: 100,000 |
| July 15, 2015 |
|
Combined: 365,000 | Report
East Coast: 293,000 | West Coast: 72,000 |
| July 22, 2015 |
|
|
| July 29, 2015 |
|
|
| August 5, 2015 |
|
|
| August 12, 2015 |
|
|
| August 19, 2015 |
|
|
| August 26, 2015 |
|
|
| September 2, 2015 |
|
|
| September 9, 2015 |
|
|
| September 16, 2015 |
|
|
| September 23, 2015 |
|
|
| September 30, 2015 |
|
|
| October 7, 2015 |
|
|
| October 14, 2015 |
|
|
| October 21, 2015 |
|
|
| October 28, 2015 |
|
|
| November 4, 2015 |
|
|
| November 11, 2015 |
|
|
| November 18, 2015 |
|
|
| November 25, 2015 |
|
|
| December 2, 2015 |
|
|
| December 9, 2015 |
|
|
| December 16, 2015 |
|
|
| December 23, 2015 |
|
|
| December 30, 2015 |
|
|
| Averages | ||
| The 2014 averages will be calculated at the end of the year. Stay tuned! | ||
The total viewership for any one episode of IMPACT Wrestling is hard to estimate. On his Twitter account, Eric Bischoff suggests that DVR numbers can add a total of 10% to 12% to the final viewership numbers. Historically, we’ve seen DVR+1 and DVR+3 figures (the amount of people who watch the show on their DVR within one day and three days of recording it) add 200,000 more viewers to the final viewership numbers reported above. Plus, the TNA Wrestling channel on YouTube posts a large portion of each episode online with no expiration date. These YouTube clips typically bring in between 50,000 and 100,000 viewers over the course of the first week that they are available. However, as DVR and YouTube viewers are not included in the television viewership estimates above, these figures are rarely if ever reported by professional wrestling “news” websites. We feel that it is necessary to report this information in order to provide a full definition for the entire spectrum of viewers for each episode. We feel that it is necessary to report this information in order to provide a full definition for the entire spectrum of viewers for each episode.