Bellator 109 took place on Friday night at the Sands Event Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Alexander Shlemenko made his second successful middleweight title defense as he defeated Doug Marshall by knockout in the first round.
According to Nielsen sources, Bellator 109’s preliminary viewership landed at 691,000 total viewers, including 0.33 (-25%) million adults (18-49) w/ a 0.25 (-24%) rating.
The peak audience viewership came during the Marshall-Shlemenko fight and was 1,009,000 viewers.
Comparatively, last weeks Friday night show only landed at a Friday night series high of 793,000 total live viewers, making this show an drop of about 12%.
Cops was once again the lead-in for Bellator 109 and for the second week in-a-row it did not reach the top-100 cable shows and did not reach a million viewers. Making for a very weak lead-in overall for Bellator.
Season 9 TV Ratings Notes:
Friday Night Season 9 Average = 652,000 live viewers
Saturday Night Season 9 Average = 768,000 live viewers
Overall Season 9 Average = 671,000 live viewers **
Most Watched Season 9 Event = Bellator 106, 1.1 Million live viewers
Least Watched Season 9 Event = Bellator 98, (Season Opener), 437,000 live viewers
Biggest Head-To-Head Competition = CFB on ABC 8.653 Million live viewers (Bellator 98)
**Overall Season 8 Average = 792,000 live viewers (-15% season-to-season)
Competition:
When it came to the competition, Bellator’s biggest challenge for viewership and demographic numbers was WWE’s Smackdown (3.106 million viewers – an almost 400,000 viewer increase week-to-week), SyFy’s Haven (1.459 million viewers – down slightly from last), and ESPN’s NBA Basketball (1.67 million viewers – up slightly).
Overall, Bellator went up against some very stiff competition week-to-week throughout the season including a very solid MLB Playoffs and some stellar Saturday night CFB games on both ABC and ESPN. Not to mention, their lead-in of Cops, drastically dropped viewers as the season progress, averaging over 1 million viewers per episode from the beginning of the season and dropping about 10-15% by the end of Season 9.
Stay with TheMMAReport.com for ongoing coverage of the Nielsen ratings battle between Bellator MMA and the UFC.