Deadline.com is featuring an interview with Pop TV President Brad Schwartz where he talks about the channel re-branding in 2018 and moving forward without wrestling.
Back in October, Impact had announced a sudden time slot change on Pop TV. A few weeks later, it was announced they would be leaving Pop TV in favor of the Pursuit channel. The company would also begin to simulcast Impact every Friday on Twitch.tv.
Schwartz confirmed that dropping wrestling programming, along with daytime soap operas, was part of a new initiative for the channel in 2019.
“…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.
“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.
“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.”