Bellator put on its tenth live show on Spike TV last night from the USF Sun Dome which featured Emanuel Newton and David Rickels winning tournaments and securing title shots.
According to a Nielsen source, Bellator 94’s preliminary number came in at 713k total viewers, down roughly 4% from last weeks live number.
Between the live (713k) and replay (359k) numbers of last night’s fight card, the cume number landed at 1.072 million total viewers.
The normal lead-in show for Bellator, Impact Wrestling, which was down last week, was once again down, this time landing at 1.31 million viewers. Impact also hit a season low 0.3 in the adult 18-49 demographic. The show featured Mr. Anderson defeating Jeff Hardy via disqualification and the Aces and Eights defeating Kurt Angle, DOC and Garett Bischoff.
When it came to the head-to-head match-up with the 2013 NCAA Basketball tournament sweet-16 round games, the NCAA scored tremendous ratings once again on TBS. The 10:08 p.m. and 10:25 p.m. overruns did 2.78 and 2.34 million viewers respectively with both shows eclipsing 0.9 in the adult 18-49 demographic. A key piece of the NCAA ratings was the post-game show did a 1.15 million viewers with a hefty 0.5 adult 18-49 demographic number. Key piece here is the NCAA slowly lost viewers as it neared the midnight eastern time-frame.
When it came to the other cable networks at 10p.m. History Channel’s Swamp People, FX’s Archer, MTV’s Ridiculousness and a surprise newcomer in American Dad on Adult Swim reigned supreme in the time-slot war. Swamp People landed at 4.56 million viewers, while Archer, American Dad and Ridiculousness each landing well above 1 million viewers and all above the 0.8 18-49 adult demographic. Very surprising as last week was down across the board.
Safe to say, heading into the finale of Bellator season eight, Bellator needs a serious boots to finish off the season to keep the season average above 850k.
I will have an updated Bellator ratings chart once the live+3 information becomes available next Tuesday.
Bellator Season 8 Ratings History:
Bellator 85 – 985k (w/ DVR)
Bellator 86 – 877k (w/ DVR)
Bellator 87 – 774k (w/ DVR)
Bellator 88 – 863k (w/DVR)
Bellator 89 – 773k (w/ DVR)
Bellator 90 – 791k (w/ DVR)
Bellator 91 – 978k (w/ DVR)
Bellator 92 – 797k (w/ DVR)
Bellator 93 – 804k (w/DVR)
Bellator 94 – 713k w/out DVR)