MMA Payout has learned through a Nielsen source that the DVR plus 3 ratings for Bellator 112 last Friday raised the overall viewership to 748,000 viewers. The additional numbers drew the peak viewership up to 1,220,000 viewers.
The peak occurred twice according to the Nielsen source, both (10:57pm and 11:01pm) during the Curran-Straus main event.
Bellator MMA 110 – Overnight: 880K; DVR +3: 1 million
Bellator MMA 111 – Overnight: 653K; DVR +3: 718K
Bellator MMA 112 – Overnight: 699K; DVR +3: 748K
Payout Perspective:
This week’s DVR bump is a little less than last week’s increase but the peak exceeded Bellator 111’s peak of 964K. The ratings should be pleasing to Bellator as we are seeing the peak going over 1 million and the DVR ratings going over 700K.
Again with this peak numbers stuff. Im not sure why this stat is always over hyped when dealing with non UFC promotions. The peak is just as useless to BMMA as it is the UFC. Its fine to look at it and see what the peak was for a event or fight and see if it relates to increased overall viewer average later. But using it as a meaningful stat of comparison is a mistake and misleading imo. It has no value even from a advertising perspective.
The peak isn’t changing much from event to event and it isn’t having an effect on the next weeks ratings. So it is meaningless. Its great if there is an unusual lead in or hype for an event to see how many possible new people it reached. But that isn’t what is happening here. BMMA/Bjork has been trying to con the media into focusing on that numbers because the real numbers fail to reach 1 million viewers. Using the peak allows him to use the “million” word which carries more weight like he is Dr Evil or something. But their ratings are nor going anywhere. They are not trending up. So why this change of focus to peak? I don’t get it.
Peak viewers are a learning tool. Not a point of accomplishment or something to brag about. What can be learned from this number is BMMA’s audience is showing almost no interest in anything but the main event. It shows their fans do not respect the other fighters on the card and a possible lack of interest in the BMMA product period. They come in for a quickie and check out the main event and leave. When your peak is twice the viewers as the first fight. That is not good news for the product when it is consistently happening. IF BMMA can strength the quality of its undercard it can bring the start ratings closer to the peak ratings and get much higher average viewers across the board. But right now I see a fan base that isn’t dedicated to the promotion and giving it as little of their time as possible. It could also show that the names on the main event are drawing some fans and the BMMA brand is not pulling its weight.