Power Slap pulls just 295,000 viewers with first episode.
The premiere episode of Dana White’s Power Slap had an excellent lead-in thanks to All Elite Wrestling’s AEW: Dynamite. However, it seems the UFC president’s latest endeavor failed to hold on to most of those viewers.
According to ShowBuzzDaily, the program—which had its debut delayed a week after White was caught on video slapping his wife, Anne, while on a family vacation in Mexico—was No. 45 in the top 50 cable telecasts for Wednesday, January 18, 2023. Power Slap, which TBS broadcasts at 10 p.m. ET, had a reported 295,000 viewers and a 0.10 rating in the 18-49 demographic.
By comparison, the lead-in for Power Slap, AEW Wrestling, was the No. 3 show on the night with 969,000 viewers. The two broadcasts rated higher than AEW Wrestling were both NBA games on ESPN. The Atlanta vs. Dallas game had 1.219 million viewers and the Minnesota vs. Denver game pulled in 1.008 million.
The AEW Wrestling broadcast, which began at 8 p.m. ET, had a .31 share in the 18-49 demographic.
Shows with a higher rating at 10 p.m. ET on Wednesday night were The Ingraham Angle on Fox News Channel (0.13), Kingdom Business on BET (.11), and 1000-lb Best Friends on TLC (0.10).
Power Slap finished with a higher rating in the 10 p.m. ET time slot than Moonshiners on TLC (.009) and Trafficked Nat Geo (0.08).
Looking at the 18-34 demographic, Power Slap had 0.06 rating, while AEW Wrestling checked in at 0.22 in that age bracket.
Power Slap was initially scheduled to debut on Wednesday, December 11. White addressed the delay of the show’s first episode at the UFC Vegas 67 post-fight press conference saying, “We pushed it back a week because I was supposed to come back (from vacation) and do this whole media tour, which obviously wasn’t going to happen when I got back.”
Ahead of Power Slap’s debut, White told potential viewers who were critical of the “sport,” “Nobody’s asking you to watch this! Oh, you’re disgusted by it? Watch The Voice.”