NJPW on Axs TV Renewed For Several Years
Jul 23, 2015 5:50:40 GMT -5
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Post by Emperor Ihsahn on Jul 23, 2015 5:50:40 GMT -5
AXS TV and TV-Asahi have announced the signing of a multi-year contract to continue Friday night broadcasts of New Japan's World Pro Wrestling Returns show.
The third season will run from 8/14 to 12/11 (there will be no first-run show over Thanksgiving weekend), and will include five separate shows airing the matches from Wrestle Kingdom 9 on 1/4 at the Tokyo Dome. The Tokyo Dome shows, with Mauro Ranallo and Josh Barnett doing voice overs of the matches previously called by Jim Ross and Matt Striker, will air from 10/9 to 11/6. The final two shows will have the Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi and Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada title matches. The season finale will be another match of the year candidate, the ***** match with Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tomoaki Honma over the Never title.
The shows have become a strong success story, as they are averaging 200,000 viewers for matches that for the most part have been more than a year old (they will have closed the gap somewhat to less than ten months by the end of this year) with English subtitles since virtually all the interviews are in Japanese. There were no expectations for numbers since nothing of this sort had ever aired in the U.S., but the show's success and reaction has been described as a very pleasant surprise and that's clear since AXS pays for the programming and has renewed the show twice now.
The show would be the fourth most watched weekly wrestling series in the country on cable, behind Raw, Smackdown and Impact, beating ROH and Lucha Underground, although both of those shows do the bulk of their audience on syndicated platforms instead of cable and would have more overall viewers for that reason.
The plan is to try and catch up the time lag, although the one hour show is the Japanese language show that airs on BS-Asahi, a satellite channel in Japan. In the past, World Pro Wrestling Returns would air on a six month lag in Japan, and until those show are produced, they can't air in the U.S. However, the plan in 2016 would be to get the lag to three months in Japan, and slightly longer than that in the U.S.
The plan in 2016 is to run the show just about 52 weeks per year, instead of seasonal as they did in the first year. In addition, most weeks will air a two hour block, where the show from the prior week will be replayed at 8 p.m. the next week, with a new episode coming at 9 p.m. The show will remain as the lead-in for the station's popular Friday night live fights. Some weeks the show will only air one hour, with the new show at 8 p.m., when live fights on the East Coast start at 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m.
Credit:WON
The third season will run from 8/14 to 12/11 (there will be no first-run show over Thanksgiving weekend), and will include five separate shows airing the matches from Wrestle Kingdom 9 on 1/4 at the Tokyo Dome. The Tokyo Dome shows, with Mauro Ranallo and Josh Barnett doing voice overs of the matches previously called by Jim Ross and Matt Striker, will air from 10/9 to 11/6. The final two shows will have the Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi and Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada title matches. The season finale will be another match of the year candidate, the ***** match with Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tomoaki Honma over the Never title.
The shows have become a strong success story, as they are averaging 200,000 viewers for matches that for the most part have been more than a year old (they will have closed the gap somewhat to less than ten months by the end of this year) with English subtitles since virtually all the interviews are in Japanese. There were no expectations for numbers since nothing of this sort had ever aired in the U.S., but the show's success and reaction has been described as a very pleasant surprise and that's clear since AXS pays for the programming and has renewed the show twice now.
The show would be the fourth most watched weekly wrestling series in the country on cable, behind Raw, Smackdown and Impact, beating ROH and Lucha Underground, although both of those shows do the bulk of their audience on syndicated platforms instead of cable and would have more overall viewers for that reason.
The plan is to try and catch up the time lag, although the one hour show is the Japanese language show that airs on BS-Asahi, a satellite channel in Japan. In the past, World Pro Wrestling Returns would air on a six month lag in Japan, and until those show are produced, they can't air in the U.S. However, the plan in 2016 would be to get the lag to three months in Japan, and slightly longer than that in the U.S.
The plan in 2016 is to run the show just about 52 weeks per year, instead of seasonal as they did in the first year. In addition, most weeks will air a two hour block, where the show from the prior week will be replayed at 8 p.m. the next week, with a new episode coming at 9 p.m. The show will remain as the lead-in for the station's popular Friday night live fights. Some weeks the show will only air one hour, with the new show at 8 p.m., when live fights on the East Coast start at 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m.
Credit:WON
