Dixie Carter screws up, makes TNA look desperate in pointless plea, and could get them and Spike TV in trouble

[Bix]

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2010/5/12/146...n-stupider-than

 

I must emphasize: She made a MAJOR error here on several levels.

[El-P]

How bush league does that sound, really.

[Death From Above]

The title of the thread really has more words than TNA deserves to have written about it at this point, to be honest.

 

Still pretty funny.

[rovert]

I wonder if Jay Hassman is consulting for TNA again. lol

[Tim Cooke]

Yep, same way Arbitron works, even in the new PPM era.

[Bix]

I wonder if Jay Hassman is consulting for TNA again. lol

I'd really love to know more about what actually happened there. I know the WWE sabotage idea sounds like something they wouldn't do so blatantly, but how incompetent could Hassman really be? Good summary here. One thing I forgot about was that inDemand had put out a press release that backed up Hassman's initial, inaccurate numbers.

 

IIRC the lawsuit was settled in a fashion where nobody really came out on top.

[rovert]

I wonder if Jay Hassman is consulting for TNA again. lol

I'd really love to know more about what actually happened there. I know the WWE sabotage idea sounds like something they wouldn't do so blatantly, but how incompetent could Hassman really be? Good summary here. One thing I forgot about was that inDemand had put out a press release that backed up Hassman's initial, inaccurate numbers.

 

IIRC the lawsuit was settled in a fashion where nobody really came out on top.

 

Me too, Bix. If it walks like a ducks, talks like a duck it is a duck.

 

I take it you read Jerry Jarrett's book right?

[Bix]

I've read Burgan's review and some excerpts on Google Books.

 

Hassman's actions were so utterly ridiculous and damaging to TNA that they couldn't have been unintentional, and the whole situation (including the initial inDemand press release, which I can't wrap my head around at all) really deserves to be examined further than it has been in the past. Between everything Hassman did and the Team Services/WWE connection, it was not paranoid at all for the Jarretts to think that it was a WWE plan.

[rovert]

The reason I mentioned Hassman is that he popped up on a Mike Johnson Mailbag appartently Hassman was a huge leak of information during the dying days of WCW. Which makes you think even more.

[Guest Slickster]

I almost think Hassman did these things because he wanted a job with WWE so he worked to screw over their closest competition in the hopes of being rewarded. He clearly had an interest in the business due to his years of working for WCW. Perhaps he saw the opportunity to kill TNA in the cradle as a chance to get a WWE job.

 

That's the only sense I could make out of it. Why else would he do all this stuff despite having no actual contacts with WWE?

[Bix]

He did have contacts within WWE. He had been working with them as part of Team Services in the distribution of the Fanatix PPVs.

[kjh]

Would one of his contacts been James Bell, WWE's former senior vice president of licensing and merchandising, who certainly knew a thing or two about secret financial kickbacks?

[Bix]

That's an excellent question.

[jdw]

The question becomes: who planted this idea in Dixie's head? Or is she stupid enough to come up with it out of thin air?

 

John

[Bix]

Hey, that's what I said!

 

She probably read something about the Live+3 numbers online, possibly as part of a fan-run "save our show" campaign website, and it either contained the falsehood or she misinterpreted it.

 

Bischoff seems like the type of personality who would be "oh, this is how TV works blah blah," but it's a case where I'd expect him to know better. It absolutely wasn't Spike.

[jdw]

Hey, that's what I said!

I know. Just wanted to pull it back in from the Hassman fun.

 

 

She probably read something about the Live+3 numbers online, possibly as part of a fan-run "save our show" campaign website, and it either contained the falsehood or she misinterpreted it.

Dixie does strike me as someone who could get easily confused by something like that.

 

Bischoff seems like the type of personality who would be "oh, this is how TV works blah blah," but it's a case where I'd expect him to know better. It absolutely wasn't Spike.

Agreed on both. Doesn't sound like something in Eric's head when ratings tank (he tends to look for people to blame), and you're right that Spike would never do something like that.

 

John

[Johnny Sorrow]

Nielsen probably wouldn't take any action, like de-listing Spike from the ratings, over a minor cable show screwing up like this, but there aren't any real precedents to go by. It was a mind-bogglingly dumb thing to say, and it's a big enough TV industry taboo that it's you can't predict what will happen.

So, Nielson won't take any action and there are no precedents to go by? By precedents do you mean a network asking the audience to help "kill" a show by watching their show on in the same time slot? Because that's been happening in TV for as long as there's been TV. I remember some show on NBC with Jim Varney as the head of a clan of hillbillies who fight crime or some such thing that had promos where they told people to tune in and "Kill the Love Boat", ABC's Juggernaut. (Which worked about as well as what Dixie here is trying I know that those promos didn't specifically say the words "Ratings or Nielson" but the jist was the same, and that was before cable meant anything. And I seriously doubt Nielson gives two shits about some Wrestling owner saying something dopey on Facebook.

 

Not taking away from how dumb it is that Dixie Carter thinks that DVR recordings are magical things that somehow send "ratings" to a magical land. That's a hoot. (She is awful pretty though. Shouldn't that take the edge off? Poor thing.)

[Loss]

So ... this should really be the nail in the coffin for Eric Bischoff or Vince Russo ever having say-so in the presentation of pro wrestling anywhere, but I seriously doubt that will be the case. With wrestling de-emphasizing grudge matches and selling concepts and brands over feuds and stars over the past few years (in part, to increase the value of writers while decreasing the value of wrestlers), I think hiring the right people in a non-wrestling capacity is more important than ever. Yet it seems to be easier to get second, third, and fourth chances in the wrestling business than it has ever been.

[Log]

Shitty wrestling bookers (or writers, or whatever) remind me of shitty football coaches. You can be as terrible as you like, totally tank a promotion (team), but as long as you once had some sort of success, people will hire you.

[Tim Cooke]

Same with baseball.

[kjh]

More evidence that TNA is desperate: TNA planning to implement major budget cutbacks immediately.

[El-P]

So they can pay Hogan and Bischoff, who killed what was left of their company. Nice.

[Bob Morris]

Nielsen probably wouldn't take any action, like de-listing Spike from the ratings, over a minor cable show screwing up like this, but there aren't any real precedents to go by. It was a mind-bogglingly dumb thing to say, and it's a big enough TV industry taboo that it's you can't predict what will happen.

So, Nielson won't take any action and there are no precedents to go by? By precedents do you mean a network asking the audience to help "kill" a show by watching their show on in the same time slot? Because that's been happening in TV for as long as there's been TV. I remember some show on NBC with Jim Varney as the head of a clan of hillbillies who fight crime or some such thing that had promos where they told people to tune in and "Kill the Love Boat", ABC's Juggernaut. (Which worked about as well as what Dixie here is trying I know that those promos didn't specifically say the words "Ratings or Nielson" but the jist was the same, and that was before cable meant anything. And I seriously doubt Nielson gives two shits about some Wrestling owner saying something dopey on Facebook.

 

Not taking away from how dumb it is that Dixie Carter thinks that DVR recordings are magical things that somehow send "ratings" to a magical land. That's a hoot. (She is awful pretty though. Shouldn't that take the edge off? Poor thing.)

 

Regarding the Varney show that ran opposite Love Boat, that's not the same thing. The advertising didn't make representations about how Nielsen ratings work, it was just a marketing campaign in hopes of luring viewers to see what the fuss was all about. Here, Dixie was passing along specific information about how Nielsen ratings work and said info is incorrect.

 

I would agree, though, that Nielsen probably won't pay attention to this unless Dixie keeps repeating the inaccurate info.

[Death From Above]

Shitty wrestling bookers (or writers, or whatever) remind me of shitty football coaches. You can be as terrible as you like, totally tank a promotion (team), but as long as you once had some sort of success, people will hire you.

I think it's much worse in wrestling than in most real sports due to the lack of there being any successful "minor leagues" to even poach at this point.

 

Even if you in theory want to hire "somebody new" who "knows wrestling" and has "some track record of success as a promoter, just on a smaller stage", where would you even look for that person these days?

 

Not that wrestling has a history of this actually happening very often. But even if you wanted to hire "The Bill Watts of the last 15 years" (not that this worked in WCW but that's not the point)... well, there isn't one to hire, really.

[Jingus]

The only guy who really comes to mind is Sapolsky. Maybe Quackenbush, depending on how far you want to stretch the definition of "financially successful". Beyond that, yeah, wrestling today is like you have nothing but high school football, a big empty space, and then the NFL.