The Ultimate Fighter 20 debut last night on Fox Sports 1 and the premiere episode was down nearly ten percent from the debut of The Ultimate Fighter 19 earlier this year.
According to Nielson sources, last night’s premiere episode landed at 536,000 viewers in the preliminary ratings, and this is down 9.9 percent from the 595,000 viewers that watched the premiere of The Ultimate Fighter 19. It should be noted that The Ultimate Fighter 19 premiere followed a live fight card earlier this year (TUF Nations Finale) in April.
When it came to the key demographics, the show had a .40 in Persons 18-49 and a .59 in Males 18-49. In addition, last night’s episode was down 9 percent in the Persons 18-49 and down 5 percent in Males 18-49 demographics from The Ultimate Fighter 19 debut.
A positive to take from last night for Fox Sports and the UFC is that the show was number 5 in the Nielson Twitter TV ratings for Series and Specials as the show trailed the Presidential Address, Big Brother, America’s Got Talent, and The Tonight Show.
When it came to the competition, the night was won by several episodes of The Big Bang Theory on TBS, which the 10:00 p.m. ET episode came in with over 3 million viewers. Other top shows in the 10 p.m. ET time slot included Teen Mom II on MTV (1.829 million), American Pickers on History (1.942 million), and TNA Impact Wrestling on Spike TV (1.05 million).
Stay tuned to TheMMAReport.com for updates on the television ratings for the UFC, Bellator, and the World Series of Fighting.