Eric Bischoff worked with TNT from 1991 to 2000, and even attempted to buy WCW from TNT in 2001, so he feels like he knows a bit about what TNT wants. He also feels like he has his finger on the pulse of what television networks want due to his experience pitching new news. AEW was picked up by TNT and began airing on October 2nd, 2019.
“I was surprised, not going to sugar coat it,” Bischoff said. “My surprise had nothing to do with my opinion of AEW, I have been pitching and selling television shows since about 2003 so I have a pretty good feel for the thinking and strategies for a lot of cable television outlets. Prior to the announcement of TNT acquiring AEW content, the general consensus was anybody that wants wrestling has it.
“I was really surprised, wrestling outside of WWE didn’t have a great reputation within the advertisement sales community, wrestling has always been a tough sale, even for WWE. The audience is always there, but wrestling has always had a tough time having an audience that will always be there, that’s been the hurdle.”
Bischoff does agree that Wednesday night was the best night for them to air Dynamite. Originally, there were strong rumors that AEW would be airing their weekly show on Tuesdays which ended up being wrong.
“I like Wednesday,” Bischoff said. “It’s easy for me to say because it’s been successful for AEW but the problem with Tuesday night would’ve been we just sat through 3 hours of wrestling on Monday night, I kind of just got my fix. No matter how much of a wrestling fan I am and I just watched three hours of WWE, I don’t want to watch another 2 hours of anything. Whether it’s Smackdown or AEW on Tuesday nights.
(credit: WrestlingInce.com)