Bellator put on its seventh live show on Spike TV last night which featured Attila Vegh becoming the second ever Bellator light heavyweight champion when he defeated defeated Christian M’Pumbu in the main event.
Bellator was also coming off two back-to-back sub-800k weeks for viewerships. With last nights main-card only having three fights it was going to be difficult to break the 800k barrier again.
According to Nielsen and Spike TV, Bellator 91’s preliminary number came in at a huge 901k total viewers. This was the biggest draw since Bellator 85, which was the first Bellator show on Spike TV.
Between the live and replay showing of last night’s fight card, the cume number was 1,242,000 total viewers.
In the male demo of 18-49, Bellator drew a .8 rating. This is the highest of the season and was up 41% from last week. Last night’s show also had a season high of a .7 in the male demo of 18-49 and that was a 46% increase from last week. The adult 18-49 demographic number was also up to 0.4.
Last night’s show peaked between 11:45 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. with 1,005,000 viewers and a .92 in males 18-49 and a .9 in males 18-34.
The normal lead-in show for Bellator, Impact Wrestling, was up sharply from last week landing at 1.49 million viewers with a 0.5 in the 18-49 adult demographic. The show featured the crowning of a new X-Division champion when Kenny King defeated WWE icon RVD and a main-event which featured Jeff Hardy and Bully Ray defeating Bad Influence.
For the rest of the competition last night Bellator was up against a bunch of repeats including CBS’s Elementary. Elementary won the 10p.m. time-slot with 7.72 million viewers and a decent 1.6 in the 18-49 adult demographic. Law and Order SVU and Jimmy Kimmel Live were also in the same time-slot but both had sub 1.0 in the 18-49 adult demographic. Overall, not a very good night from the networks.
When it came to the other cable networks at 10p.m. both Archer and NBA on TNT once again reigned supreme in the time-slot war. Archer’s rating landed at 1.52 million viewers with a strong 1.0 in the adult 18-49 demographic. The NBA hit 1.68 million viewers and a .8 in the 18-49 adult demographic.
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 – 900k (w/out DVR)