MMAPayout.com has learned that the fourth episode of The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 earned the highest rating yet on the season with 1.5 HH rating on an average audience of 2 million viewers. The show scored very well in the M18-34 and M18-49 demographics with a 2.4 and 1.9 respectively.
The quarterly hours tracked as follows: 1.33, 1.49, 1.58, and 1.64.
Payout Perspective:
This is the second straight week the ratings have increased for the show. It’s not a HUGE increase, by any means, but my expectation was that the ratings would drop to their average levels as they’ve been shown to do over the last 7-8 seasons. That still may happen, but there’s certainly a resiliency in this season that others didn’t have.
Perhaps there’s renewed interest in TUF as the result of the new fan push the UFC made last summer (after TUF 9, but before and during TUF 10) that has risen the baseline – more so considering its Chuck vs. Tito. Maybe the ratings are a reflection of Spike using a new schedule strategy that tries to pair strong shows together to make the viewers continue watching the station for longer periods of time. It’s even possible that last weekend’s brawl on CBS pushed some people towards this week’s episode of TUF.
I think it’s likely a case of all three having a part in the ratings, but in judging the quarterly results I’m also inclined to think that people who started watching the show figured out there were going to be two fights and called their friends (especially when it was discovered that this season’s villain, Jamie Yager, was fighting in the second bout).
Here’s a look at the ratings thus far:
| TUF 11 | Overall | M18-34 | M18-49 | |
| Episode 1 | 1.5 | 2.1 | 1.8 | |
| Episode 2 | 1.2 | 1.9 | 1.54 | |
| Episode 3 | 1.3 | 1.63 | 1.53 | |
| Episode 4 | 1.5 | 2.4 | 1.9 | |
| Episode 5 | ||||
| Episode 6 | ||||
| Episode 7 | ||||
| Episode 8 | ||||
| Episode 9 | ||||
| Episode 10 | ||||
| Episode 11 | ||||
| Season Ave. | 1.375 | 2.0075 | 1.6925 | |
| Season Med. | 1.4 | 2 | 1.67 |
Reality TV MMA scores higher than real MMA on TV. Great.
Pleasantly surprised with these numbers. I also expected the ratings to drop to 1.0 to 1.1 range. I guess this season is good? I did not watch last nights episode to give any opinion.
mmaguru,
DVR it, fast forward the drama and watch the fights. There have been some decent fights so far this season.
all the credit goes to spike this time..they have tna wrestling on monday nite and this week’s ratings were up big time…then tuesday they had a deadliest warrior special and the premiere that did huge numbers and they heavily promoted tuf in both…it was a smart scheduling strategy all around..
If the reports of Tito leaving the show for whatever reason and Rich coming in are true, then Spike can promote all of that and probably keep the ratings up this season.