Deadline recently interviewed POP President Bradley Schwartz, who opened up on what went into the decision to remove IMPACT Wrestling from the network, “Yes, we had a wrestling show every Thursday night, which by the way was one of our 10 highest-rated shows on the network. They wanted to keep going, obviously. It was two hours of original content every Thursday night, 52 weeks a year that would do 400 thousand-500 thousand viewers every Thursday night.”
Schwartz continued, “We had to really start focusing on brand and expectation, and I think if you’re going to pitch yourself and tell audiences that you’re this place for premium content, Schitt’s Creek, Flack, Florida Girls, this type of stuff, then people need to know what to expect from you when they come to the channel.”
The POP President also removed soap operas for the same reason, “Same reason. We wanted to really focus in on our core demo. Soaps, as much as it’s a big total audience number, it’s older. It’s a lot of 65-plus.”
IMPACT Wrestling was a POP staple having been with the network for three years from early 2016 to early 2019, but saw its time slot move several times over the years from Tuesdays 9PM EST to Thursdays at 8PM EST to avoid going head to head with WWE’s SmackDown Live. IMPACT Wrestling made a final transition to 10PM EST before announcing a move to the Pursuit Channel in late 2018.
