Eric Bischoff got upset at the coverage of recent TNA Impact ratings. Before the ratings were known a backstage source told Dixie Carter that the likely pattern would be that the October 14 episode would start off with big ratings but that people would tune out en masse as the show went on, which is in fact what happened. Bischoff was adamant that they set up six months’ worth of angles and thus the episode was a success. The mentality remains that right now the only people who can be on top are those that are known to the public from the ’90s wrestling boom or WWE exposure in the past decade. The focus is on week-to-week ratings as the promotion does not have the huge resources or established identity that WWE does, which means WWE finds it safer to sacrifice short-term success in order to get newer talent over for the long-term. TNA being so reliant on the Spike TV contract only serves to perpetuate this approach.
One TNA source said the following about the Bischoff regime – “Don’t you love it how Eric Bischoff says he has nothing to do with creative when numbers are down or the show sucks, but is the first one to congratulate himself on twitter/facebook when Impact or Reaction does a good number?….He’s not going anywhere, but Dixie is on to him and enough people have complained that he has lost a lot of his clout. Unlike Hogan, who is well-liked, and Russo, who people roll their eyes when talking about his booking but don’t personally dislike him, you get a lot of negative on Bischoff, more because of how he carries
himself and relates to talent than for his actual decisions.”
