In the cabinet filed under “news we expected to come one day but not as soon as it has”, we’ve just got word that Destination America has made the decision to cancel TNA Wrestling and take it off the air completely.
According to Dave Meltzer at The Wrestling Observer, the decision was made by Destination America execs just days before the move to Wednesday’s was made public, with the intention of a final air date of the last week of September, in time for when a new season of programming in the USA begins.
The word inside the circles of Destination America was that although the program delivered good ratings for them (it was their highest rated show by far), they can’t justify the cost of the show since their regular advertisers don’t want to spend money during its time slot. Destination America is a family friendly station and TNA’s programming is very firmly in the TV-14 category.
Meltzer added that TNA were told specifically that their programming would remain on Friday nights’ until it ends in September, and that the news of the move to Wednesday came completely out of the blue. Apparently this decision was supposed to be kept a secret, similar to when Spike cancelled TNA last year.
The public acknowledgement is expected to come soon. There’s currently no news on if and when TNA will find a new network but as of right now, times look very bleak for TNA indeed.
We’ll update this story as and when we get more details.
