Posted in: AEW, Sports, TV | Tagged: aew, all out, Dark, tony khan, wrestling

Tony Khan Swears New AEW Show Will Launch This Year, Won't Be Dark

Published Fri, 04 Sep 2020 09:35:14 -0500

AEW President Tony Khan hosted a media call to promote the All Out PPV. He offered an unspoken deal to the wrestling media: we talk about the PPV, and he provides with a virtually limitless stream of quotes we can break up into dozens of clickbait articles. It's a fair trade, and one we appreciate. One of the topics on the call is the fabled "third hour" of AEW programming announced when they re-upped their television deal with TNT. That show hasn't materialized yet, for obvious reasons with a global pandemic still going on, but Tony Khan promised we would see it within the next year. And also, it definitely won't be AEW Dark.

Hopefully, Matt Hardy won't lose at All Out and have to leave AEW before they launch their new TV show. (Credit: AEW)

"It's funny because I speak to [Warner television executives] a lot and actually I had a text from some top executives at Warner because we talk so much about promoting the show and about ideas; actually, they texted while I've been on this call with you guys," Khan said. "And it's a great relationship. And like I said, it's the lifeblood of our company and our media partnership. And [former WB exect] Kevin [Reilly], at the time when he was saying Dark, that was not accurate. We were not going to bring Dark as the third hour, and we had communicated that. But it was a miscommunication. I think Kevin misunderstood some of the material. Dark was doing very, very well, and I think [it] is doing very, very well. And Dark has actually risen since this conversation we had with Kevin, but that we would do a totally different third hour and keep Dark on YouTube. And that is still the plan."

As for the new AEW show, it's coming, and Khan promises it will be within the next year.

"I don't have an exact date," Khan said. "I can promise you it will be in the next year, but I don't know exactly when. And there's a lot of work that's going to go into it that still needs to be done in terms of market testing. You know, a lot goes into launching a show, and before it will go on network television, we'll have to do all that work. And I think, frankly, as far as going in and doing that market research and putting together a launch plan, the pandemic sidetracked us on that. And it made it more difficult. And as far as people developing new shows and working on them, a lot of shows have been slowed down. We've been really fortunate that AEW Dynamite has been on through the pandemic and done really, really well, and has consistently been in or around the top 10 shows. And that was our goal and their goal for us."

Always bragging, Tony; Khan reiterated his promise, though. "And I don't know exactly when, but as things are starting to hopefully get more and more normal and hopefully as the country keeps trending in a better direction, hopefully in terms of going back to work, we'll be definitely watching the show soon. I don't know the exact date, though, man."

You can watch AEW All Out this Sunday on B/R Live or the Fite app, depending on what country you and/or your VPN are in.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!