MMA Junkie reports that ratings for the unannounced UFC Primetime episodes last Wednesday drew an average audience of 144,000 viewers.
Via MMA Junkie:
The debut episode of “UFC Primetime” scored 610,000 viewers on Spike TV. In addition to ESPN2, replays have aired on ION Television, Fuel TV and Versus.
Payout Perspective:
There is no word on the ratings for episode two’s airing on Spike TV Wednesday night but it appears that the true goal of the UFC Primetime airings on various networks is to get the word out for this Saturday rather than drawing a high episode rating. We should expect that if the UFC wanted a big overall rating, it would have promoted it. Looking back, I do not recall any specific tweets from Dana White telling his followers to check out ESPN2 last Wednesday. The UFC seems to be too media savvy to let its product go unannounced when its on television.
It makes you wonder what kind of relationship Spike and the UFC have right now. By the UFC putting PT on so many networks it cuts into Spike ratings. That seems to be the reason Spike put this PT on 3 hours after TUF. They were not going to waste a good time slot on something that wasn’t exclusive.
I would also be willing to be the UFC is paying for their time slot on ESPN 2. Thats why they dont promote ESPN and send viewers that way. They are trying to get people who are not already following the UFC via twitter and Spike. If you are buying time and dont actually have a deal with ESPN why boost their ratings with Twitter followers? Those people are already likely going to buy the PPV or watching the PT on Spike. No reason to feed ESPN ratings. If they did work out a deal with ESPN they would want to show good numbers and that doesnt seem like their objective.
Brian is correct with his assumption of Zuffa discreetly paying for a time slot on ESPN 2. This is a common practice with content producers these days. Why would Zuffa cut a deal and not promote the network showing the UFC content.