Bellator 360 averages 487,000 viewers for first 2 episodes (513k Peak)

[Liquidrob]

http://www.mmajunkie.com/news/2013/01/bellator-360-averages-487000-viewers-for-first-two-episodes

'BELLATOR 360' AVERAGES 487,000 VIEWERS FOR FIRST TWO EPISODES
BY JOHN MORGAN ON JAN 04, 2013 AT 6:00 PM ET

Thursday night's debut episodes of the original series 'Bellator 360' averaged 487,000 viewers over the two-hour block on Spike TV.

The debut episode, which aired at 10 p.m. ET, averaged 461,000 viewers. The second episode, which premiered immediately after the first, drew an audience of 513,000 viewers.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) on Tuesday confirmed the ratings information with industry sources.

Hosted by Bellator broadcaster Jimmy Smith, the 'Bellator 360' highlights past fights in the promotion's history while also previewing upcoming matchups.

The first episode featured current lightweight champion Michel Chandler (10-0 MMA, 7-0 BFC), as the undefeated fighter relived his November 2011 championship win over Eddie Alvarez and looked ahead to his Bellator 85 title defense against former Olympic judoka Rick Hawn (14-1 MMA, 6-1 BFC).

The second episode of the series featured a look at Russian striker Alexander Shlemenko (46-7 MMA, 7-1 BFC) and explosive Brazilian Maiquel Falcao (31-4 MMA, 3-0 BFC) as they prepare to contest Bellator's vacant middleweight title on Feb. 7 at Bellator 88.

Bellator 85, which takes place Jan. 17, marks Bellator MMA's first season on Spike TV, the former broadcast home of the UFC, after shifting away from MTV 2. The all-time Bellator-MTV2 ratings for live events include:

Bellator 84 ratings: 191,000 viewers
Bellator 83 ratings: 105,000
Bellator 82 ratings: 156,000
Bellator 81 ratings: 149,000
Bellator 80 ratings: 148,000
Bellator 79 ratings: 220,000
Bellator 78 ratings: 154,000
Bellator 77 ratings: 149,000
Bellator 76 ratings: 175,000
Bellator 75 ratings: 145,000
Bellator 74 ratings: 190,000
Bellator 71-73 ratings (Summer Series average): 180,000
Bellator 60-70 ratings (Season 6 average): 155,000
Bellator 49-59 ratings (Season 5 average): 186,000
Bellator 46-48 ratings (Summer Series average): 229,000
Bellator 35-45 ratings (Season 4 average): 204,000

[EmpireWF]

Didn't keep much of the TNA audience, but as Meltzer pointed out, it was a taped studio show....so hardly evidence they can't do better on that front in 2 weeks.

Whatever they DO do for this upcoming season, as long as the numbers aren't bottoming out, it should be looked at as a building block. It's not like Spike has enormous expectations for 10-midnight anyway.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Live shows with fights will obviously do better than this, the question is by how much?

[Liquidrob]

I say a lot, 360 had zero promotion, the first previewof it was yesterday, no word before that I believe

They need to pump this title fights for the 17th hard, Curran vs Pitbull has a chance to be special and Chandler vs Hawn could be really good with Chandler being Bellators guy

[Liquidrob]

Also, almost 3 times the people watched then any Bellator ever and it was old fights

[Warner2BruceTD]

Yeah, what this shows is the power of being on a better network. These two shows essentially got a half million viewers by accident. No promotion, no live fights, no hype. Just whoever was too lazy to change the channel after wrestling.

There was no possible upward movement on MTV2, they would have been treading water until Bjorn had no money left.

[Liquidrob]

Interesting to see the second show got higher numbers, I assume 11pm is worse then 10pm for tv ratings and 10 was right after TNA

[Warner2BruceTD]

Interesting to see the second show got higher numbers, I assume 11pm is worse then 10pm for tv ratings and 10 was right after TNA

That's why I think the numbers were random and accidental. Spike baselines. The first show, in theory, was the 'better' show, with the great fight and the bigger 'stars' being featured. Plus it was an hour earlier. So the ratings pattern makes no sense.

100k people didn't say "ok, the big Shlemenko preview is coming on, let me put on Spike". That didn't happen.

[Liquidrob]

Russia tuned in