TUF live was a homerun!

[Liquidrob]

Well, thats what Dana was saying all season, now the 'live' format is done, next season will be backed to to the taped format

Also, if next year isnt about to Dana's 'standards' they promised to move it to Tuesday or Wednesday, I thought it was a 'hit' on Friday nights?

[Warner2BruceTD]

Actual quote earlier this year:

“I love the format; the format’s awesome. As far as the show goes, it’s a fucking home run for FX. It’s on Friday nights. Friday nights they do movies and reruns. We’re the No. 1 thing in males 18-34 every Friday night. If not, we’re No. 2 if they pull something off that beats us. They’re happy as a pig in shit. For me, I want to pull 3 million viewers on FX. We’re No. 1 on Friday nights every week, which they’ve never had. The (UFC 145) prelims on Saturday on FX were No. 1. It’s a home run for them."

LOL@3 million viewers. That tired show will NEVER draw 3 million viewers. IT'S DEAD.

[Warner2BruceTD]

White said that the perception that TUF was drawing poorly on FX was because Spike executives were leaking ratings to MMA web sites and presenting them in a misleading way.

He said Spike also tried to create confusion in the marketplace by running reruns of TUF programming against the live show on FX.

Hahaha there goes White, blaming Spike for "spinning" the ratings again. Ironic coming from the guy who spins shit for a living.

Spike doesn't have to 'leak' anything, TV ratings are not hard to come by.


Home Run = UFC on FX down, UFC on Fuel down, UFC on FOX down, TUF lowest ever. Everything on FOX has dropped steadily since the debut. Yeah, i'm sure they are all 'pigs in shit' over there.

[EmpireWF]

Dana didn't even say FX promised they'd move it to the middle of the week if the ratings are still shit. He said he hoped they would I think.

Can they really be happy with just a good 18-49 rating in that slot? Besides, how can it be that great if they only get around a million viewers overall?

Friday is such a shitty time for the show.

[The Buddha]

Ive thought for a while now that if FX put it on a Tuesday (the day they usually show their best shows) it might get more viewers. Usually they show a movie, but MMA leading into a show like Sons of Anarchy might work.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Meltzer smashes FX & Dana's bullshit:

White said that even though the numbers were down, it was a smash hit for FX. FX claimed that TUF was the second most watched series on basic cable on Friday nights among men 18-34 and 18-49, behind only ESPN, which was broadcasting NBA basketball. The show greatly outperformed what FX was doing in 18-49s on Fridays last year. While I don’t have 18-34 and 18-49 male rankings comparisons for the night as a whole, there is no way TUF was No. 2 on basic cable on Fridays in those demos, because of Smackdown, which we do have numbers for.

In Males 18-49, on 5/4, TUF did a 0.7 and Smackdown did a 1.0. On 5/11, TUF did a 0.7 and Smackdown did a 1.0. On 5/18, TUF did a 0.7 and Smackdown did a 1.2. On 5/25, TUF did an 0.7 and Smackdown did a 1.0. Smackdown often outrated NBA games, but since Smackdown drew so many more children than the NBA and UFC, the NBA games won the demo solidly most weeks.

For overall numbers, the discrepancy is far greater as Smackdown averaged a 1.84 rating and 2.67 million viewers in May. TUF averaged an 0.7 rating and 900,000 viewers. In the overall 18-49 demo, TUF never placed in the top 25 on any Friday in May. Smackdown was usually in 5th or 6th place.

Nevertheless, White claimed the perception that TUF wasn’t doing well was because Spike TV leaked ratings to MMA web sites and presented them in a misleading way. He said the overall viewership was less on FX than Spike, but that was largely because of the switch of days. If you’re asking me the prime reason for the decline, the major reason is the switch of days. But it’s not the only reason, because they started the season with 1.2 million viewers and ended with barely 800,000, and that decline factors out Friday, since the big number was on a Friday.

At the beginning of the season, they had to compete with Spike confusing the marketplace, and getting people used to watching on a new station, and the first week they also had to compete with Smackdown for one hour. Ten weeks later, none of that was the case. But the audience was still dropping most weeks. There are a number of reasons, and perhaps live is one of them (I personally liked it live, but it was also clear the lack of the hijinx in the house and storylines were hurting the ratings). I think another big one is that it has been so long since the show produced a breakout star. There was a feeling for the first several years that you were getting to see future stars develop before your eyes. In recent years, the feeling has been you are getting to see guys who will bounce around prelims and never go farther than that with rare exceptions.

White also said that Spike tried to create confusion in the marketplace by running reruns of old TUF episodes head-to-head. That’s true, they did, but those shows did poorly and many weeks Spike gave up on doing it and there was no such competition. In addition, after about the third week of bad ratings, if Spike even continued those shows (they did some weeks, not others), they completely stopped promoting them.

The comparison with Smackdown is because Chuck Saftler, the Executive Vice President of FX, in the article claimed the ratings of Ultimate Fighter were on par with Smackdown on Syfy, “which has been an institution on Friday nights.”

[Liquidrob]

get em big dave

I bet his ppv estimates go down now...