WCW: Monday Nitro
May 4, 1998
Indianapolis, IN
Market Square Arena

The current WCW champs are as follows:
WCW World Champion: Hollywood Hogan (4/20/1998)
WCW U.S. Champion: Bill Goldberg (4/20/1998)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: The Outsiders (2/22/1998)
WCW World Television Champion: Booker T (5/3/1998)
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Chris Jericho (1/24/1998)

BROADCAST NOTE: Due to TNT airing game one of the NBA western conference semifinals between the Seattle SuperSonics and the Los Angeles Lakers, this is only a two-hour broadcast. Since that game starts at 9PM EST, that means Nitro starts an hour earlier than usual at 7PM EST which a scheduling change always makes it difficult ratings-wise for obvious reasons. If your casual viewer doesn’t watch any other WCW programming, then naturally they won’t be aware of the change and will more than likely only tune in for the second hour of Nitro. This fact was strongly represented in the ratings report as the first hour received a 2.53 while the second hour received a 4.45 rating. On Raw is War that went completely unopposed (9PM-11PM EST) for the whole two-hour broadcast, the WWF received a 5.47 rating for the first hour and a 5.54 rating for the second hour. Interestingly enough, the NBA playoffs airing on TNT could not have come at a worst time for WCW.

HOUR NUMBER ONE! Your hosts are Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, and Larry Zbyszko.
Read the rest of this entry →