Some good news for TNA: Variety is reporting that Pop TV, the home of Impact Wrestling, will be increasing its footprint to the tune of 8 million additional homes over the course of the next few months. These new homes will come from the network signing deals with Cablevision (also known as Optimum), AT&T U-Verse, and Wide Open West (also known as WOW!). As someone who lives in Cablevision’s service area, if their history is any indication, this move is to add homes that got cable companies’ own listing services in the pre-interactive guide days in lieu of carrying Pop’s predecessors, The TV Guide Channel and The Preview Channel.
If you have @optimum you now have @PopTV Channel 154
I invite you to watch @IMPACTWRESTLING Tuesdays at 9pm ET pic.twitter.com/XEM8mUJI4n
— Dixie Carter (@TNADixie) January 15, 2016
According to the Variety article, this will give Pop a universe of 88 million homes, but they still have a lot of hurdles to overcome as they average just 170,000 viewers in prime time. The conundrum for Pop is that while its past as just a TV listing channel meant it was in a fairly large number of homes, it doesn’t have the history as a destination that other long-standing networks like USA Network, TBS, TNT, and Spike have.
Pop president Brad Schwartz told Variety that the addition of Cablevision is key because so many advertising executives live in their service area on Long Island in the New York City suburbs. “A lot of our advertisers haven’t been able to watch the channel.”
