Kathleen Finch, the Chairman and Chief Content Officer of Warner Bros. Discovery, praised AEW‘s viewership while discussing the unsuccessful debut of Power Slap.
Speaking with Deadline, Finch discussed the decision to have Dana White’s Power Slap air on TBS after footage of the UFC President slapping his wife on New Year’s Eve became public. The show’s premiere was pushed back a week, but it still aired amid the controversy. Finch stated that airing Power Slap is an experiment, and she highlighted the overlap of wrestling fans with viewers who would enjoy the action seen on Power Slap.
“Of course. Yes,” she said. “This is an experiment. The goal is, we are making shows for our fans, that’s who we work for. Fans of wrestling have a lot of overlap with the fans of this and it’s huge on social media so the idea really is, if we can take something that’s huge on social, bring it to a linear audience giving the fans what they want.”
“This may surprise you to know that I did not know much about wrestling before I took this job. I know, I seem like a wrestling fan, but I’m not. But I did have to learn a lot about the audience. A lot of families that watch [wrestling], I was very surprised to learn this. I have huge respect for this audience. AEW wrestling airs on two of our networks, TNT and TBS — on both nights it kills. Finding something that speaks to that audience, that would be gold.”
Power Slap aired after AEW Dynamite on January 18. Dynamite scored 967,000 viewers, whole Power Slap fell short of 300,000 viewers.
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