Bellator put on its fifth live show on Spike TV last night which featured Eduardo Dantas retaining his bantamweight title and four strong middleweight tournament bouts.
Last night was also Valentines Day, which typically hurts ratings for the majority of TV shows (6% down across the board compared to last years holiday numbers) and this definitely impacted Bellator’s numbers overall.
Bellator 89 preliminary number did not land in the cable TV top-100 TV shows (second time in 3 events) and landed at 719k total viewers. The replay pulled a 313k total viewers bringing the total to 1.032m total viewers combined.
The normal lead-in show for Bellator, Impact Wrestling, did a lower number again this week landing at 1.3 million viewers with a 0.4 in the 18-49 adult demographic. The show was once again pre-taped from London and featured a solid matchup that featured 1996 US Olympic Gold Medalist (Wrestling) Kurt Angle taking on Samoa Joe.
For the rest of the competition last night Bellator was up against some network competition in its time-slot including ABC’s Scandal which once again drew well over 8 million viewers and a 2.8 in the key 18-49 demographic and CBS’s Elementary that came in at over 10 million viewers and a 2.2 in the 18-49 demographic.
When it came to the other top-cable networks the 10 p.m. time-slot was filled with large ratings across the board from the likes of Suits on USA, the Season premiere of Ridiculousness on MTV and FX’s Archer. Each show did well over 1.15 million viewers and 0.8’s in the 18-49 adult demographic.
It should also be noted that the NBA Doubleheader on TNT last night averaged 3.0 million viewers, up +52% vs. their average over the prior month.
Safe to say, with the holiday and the increased competition by the national and cable networks this wasn’t the best night of the year for Bellator.
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 – 719k (w/out DVR)