Following up last weeks season low rating The Ultimate Fighter looked to bounce back with an episode that featured Robert “Bubba” McDaniel defeating Kevin Casey via TKO as Kevin was unwilling to fight the third round.
According to Nielsen sources, the ninth episode of The Ultimate Fighter 17 came in 32nd overall out of the top 100 cable shows landing at 1.303 million viewers and a 0.7 in the 18-49 adult demographic.
This preliminary number was a huge bounce back from the previous weeks and is a great sign going into the next round of fights. It should also be noted that unlike previous weeks, The Ultimate Fighter did not receive a strong lead-in this go around. Surprisingly, the lead-in programming didn’t even crack the top-100 cable shows. Justified, which has been really solid all season long, came in 9th overall for the night with a 2.451 million viewers and a 0.9 in the adult demographic.
When it came to the competition from the national networks in the 9 p.m. time-slot the UFC went up against juggernaut NCIS: Los Angeles on CBS that drew a huge 16.59 million viewers and a 3.1 18-49 adult demographic (10 share). However, the UFC did beat, CW’s repeat of Beauty and the Beast, which only hit 530k and a 0.2 in the 18-49 adult demographic. Again, not exactly ideal demo comparison for the UFC, but a win is a win on TV.
On the cable side of things at 9 p.m. time-slot the UFC lost out again against TBS’s The Big Bang Theory, History Channels Top Gear and both FaceOff and Law and Order: SVU on the Universal Family of networks which all scored higher viewers and demographic numbers. This again, should not come as as a shock as the UFC has struggled all season to beat these shows. It should be noted though that The Ultimate Fighter only lost out by .2 in the 18-49 demographic compared to FaceOff and Law and Order: SVU, so that is once again a good sign nearing the completion of the season.
The UFC also went up against the NCAA tournament and a pair of “play-in” games on Tru-TV, which scored fairly low numbers overall. Both games averaged out to about 1.187 million viewers overall, but hit a snag in the 18-49 demographic landing at a meager 0.4. Now, I don’t have the male demographic numbers, but based off the adult number, it is safe to say the UFC handily beat out the NCAA in that regard. Again, will be interesting to see what Bellator is able to do head-to-head against the myriad of games offered by the CBS networks tomorrow night.