The building process of Bellator Fighting Championships on Spike TV continues, and the ratings for the fourth show are back and yield positive returns.
Bellator 88, which took place on Thursday night, ended up with an average of 807,000 viewers over the two-hour broadcast on Spike TV. A Nielsen TV ratings report obtained by Bleacher Report on Friday confirmed the numbers for the latest Bellator broadcast.
Those numbers are up 14 percent from last week’s broadcast that saw a late change in the main event just a day before the show aired.
This event featured a middleweight title fight, and Alexander Shlemenko captured the gold when he defeated Maiquel Falcao in the featured bout on the card.
The increase also showed up in the covered 18-49 male demographic where Bellator was able to receive a .7 rating, the highest they’ve had since moving to Spike TV a month ago.
Advertisers will typically say that the 18-49 demographic is the main key when it comes to television ratings for commercials and marketing promotion.
The replay for Bellator 88 drew an additional 268,000 viewers airing at midnight, which brings the total for both shows up to 1.075 million viewers.
Thus far during their four show streak with Spike TV, Bellator has averaged 864,000 viewers overall.
Now these numbers still don’t compare to the live numbers amassed by the UFC when they aired on Spike TV, nor with the UFC moving to FX for live events, but as Bellator continues to grow and expand their fan base, these figures are encouraging overall.
Bellator will continue their latest season on Spike TV with next week’s Bellator 89 event from Charlotte, NC.
The show is headlined by a bantamweight title fight between champion Eduardo Dantas as he faces top contender Marcos Galvao. The card also features the kick off for the latest Bellator middleweight tournament including knockout artist Brian Rogers taking on Dan Cramer, while former WEC champ Doug Marshall faces Andreas Spang on the main televised card.
Damon Martin is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report and all information was received first hand unless otherwise noted.
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