I don't usually pay attention to dirt sheets, especially where TNA buy rates are concerned, since as a privately traded company, that information is never officially released since it doesn't have to be, but this report I saw was quite shocking since I considered the show to be a very good pay per view effort:

TNA Final Resolution drew approximately 8,000 PPV buys. The episode of Impact Wrestling before theshow averaged 1.44 million viewers.

Credit: Wrestling Observer

So, 1,440,000 people watched the go home show, and 1,432,000 didn't buy the pay per view. It isn't just TNA struggling with pay per view numbers, WWE Vengeance, headlined by John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio in a Last Man Standing match drew just 70,000 domestic buys, the second lowest domestic buy rate in WWE history (although the lowest was officially branded as an ECW pay per view, the much laughed at December to Dismember).

The biggest reason for this is simple, RECESSION. People don't have as much disposable income now as they did even 3 years ago, so with the increase of pay per views (WWE run 14, TNA run 12) and the rising cost of said pay per views (WWE charge $44.99 (SD)/$49.99 (HD) per event with the exception of Wrestlemania which is $10 more expensive, TNA's are more reasonable at $34.99, but it's still not cheap). So, if someone were to order all WWE and TNA pay per views in standard definition, they'd be shelling out over $1,059. Another factor is UFC gaining popularity and taking buys away from wrestling events.

As for the next step, I think TNA should try and work a deal with Spike TV and do something similar to what WWE is going to be doing with their new network, cut pay per views down to 3 a year (Lockdown, Slammiversary and Bound For Glory), and then have a live monthly 3 hour iMPACT special on a Sunday night.

I'm pretty sure they'd get more from advertising money from a show with 1.6m viewers than the $279,920 that 8,000 buys would generate (considering the pay per view provider would take a cut of the profits). After all, I'd think Spike TV would be happy for a higher rated show on a Sunday that TNA could benefit from it, maybe getting a bigger cut of advertising revenue. This would also allow them to get away with airing some non-wrestling segments since people wouldn't be as pissed off if it wasn't costing them.

Infact, TNA's last venture into this territory was good, in August 2010, they ran a pay per view style show, titled "The Whole F'N Show", which pulled in 1.63m viewers, if TNA were to pull that in on a Sunday night, Spike execs would likely cream their pants with excitement.

So what do you think? Feel free to comment over on the forums regardless of if you agree or not.