"It is not the critic who counts; nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Ratings for EliteXC's Feb. 10 event

According to a Spike TV press release, EliteXC's debut event on Showtime (aired Saturday Feb. 10 10pm - 12:32am) drew 365,000 total viewers while Spike TV's repeat airing of a pre-packaged UFC show -- Ultimate Knockouts 2 (aired Saturday Feb. 10 10pm) -- drew 1,215,000 total viewers.

Initially, these numbers appear to indicate that the UFC taped show dramatically outperformed EliteXC's debut event. That wouldn't be a very good start for EliteXC.

But let's dig a little deeper. Showtime is a premium cable channel and therefore costs viewers between $10-$15 per month extra compared to Spike TV, which is a basic cable channel. As expected, Showtime has many fewer viewers -- it is reported to be available in about 15 million households while Spike TV is reported to be available in about 80 million households.

Given this disparity in the availability of each channel, it makes more sense to compare ratings between the two shows rather than total viewers. Ratings account for how many households a given show is available in, which make them better measures of how shows fare.

Upon further inquiry, the folks at Spike TV were kind enough to provide the ratings for each show. Looking at these numbers, we see a very different picture from the one above.

EliteXC's show did a 1.62 household rating, with a 1.41 in males 18-34, and a 1.47 in males 18-49. Spike TV's Ultimate Knockouts 2 did a 0.95 household rating, with a 1.17 in males 18-34, and a 1.00 in males 18-49.

Based on the ratings, we see that EliteXC actually won the head-to-head matchup, though the UFC show still did quite well. Overall, these ratings are a good sign for MMA executives.
Posted by Pramit Mohapatra at 6:15 PM
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2 comments:

Rob said...

Now I will admit I do not quite understand ratings, but if you want to round numbers off, it was 3.7 into 150 (hundred thousands) for showtime and 1.2 into 80 (million) for spiketv...

dispite the ratings I think asfar as percentage of households who watched SpikeTV wins hands down for a repeated event...I think companies really don't understyand just how much time and effort it took for UFC to become mainstream...boxing doesn't appear to get as much coverage (in Canada atleast) as MMA does

2:41 PM
Pramit Mohapatra said...

Rob,

I'm not sure exactly what your point is. However, if you divide 365,000 into 15 million (as you suggest), the resulting fraction is larger than dividing 1.2 million into 80 million. So, any way you slice it, Showtime's telecast of EliteXC's debut event did better than Spike TV's airing of the taped UFC show.

Pramit

12:05 PM

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