TNA Losing It's Home In The UK

[Troy]

TNA’s flagship show, Impact, has lost it’s home in the UK as British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), which recently acquired Bravo and other cable channels, announced today that it will shut down the channel.

The Guardian newspaper reports that Sky deemed Bravo too similar to its own cable channel, Sky1, which happens to air WWE’s Superstars program. Sky bought a package of channels from the Living TV Group (previously known as Virgin Media Television) in a deal completed yesterday for £160m. The portfolio includes Bravo, Living TV and Channel One (formerly Virgin1).

TNA Impact airs on Bravo on Saturday nights.

Andy Barton of TNA issued the following statement on TNA's UK TV situation:

""Following the acquisition of Virgin Media TV channels (now rebranded as The Living TV Group) by Sky, there has always been the possibility of fundamental changes to these channels, including Bravo. However, we remain confident in TNA's position due to the outstanding ratings enjoyed in 2010, and our long term contract with the Living TV Group."

Meanwhile, Dean Kirk sent the following....BT (British Telecom) Vision carry TNA Impact and PPVs on their 'sports' package which incurs an additional fee of £6.99 ($10 approx) per month. The previous week's Impact is uploaded every Saturday and PPVs are on a one week delay.

Sky recently signed a new five year deal with WWE, extending their partnership to 25 years, and I am sure that one of the clauses will be that the Sky network can't show any other wrestling program.

TNA will need to find a new network in the UK to broadcast the show because of that contract. They should be able to find someone that will want to show their program. I am not too familiar with the stations in the UK so maybe a UK member would have a better idea of what potential network TNA can go to rather than having to pay for a delayed telecast.

 

[Keith]

I won't miss Bravo thats for sure TNA and the X-Fires are the only decent things on there.

It is a big blow for them because wather Dixie likes to admit it or not the UK is their biggest sounce of income. As for a replacement that is tricky as there are loads of smaller channels like Bravo, but they don't really draw the same kind of ratings. The terrestial channels might be out, I don't think Wrestling is quite the BBC's cup of tea, ITV might be possible although they would more than like likely to stick it in a late at night/early hours of the morning time slot, Four is a no go because of the frost relationship with WWF, Five is the most likely as they don't have such a fixed scudule, but again would strggle to get a prime time slot for it. My idea would be FX, a channel with a brand name and a reputaion for showing cutting edge programming [if TNA can be called that nowadays]