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Thought I'd post this, due to the 'news' swirling around about ****e 'outdrawing' showtime.
by Jake Rossen (jrossen@sherdog.com)
Television spins numbers with the expertise of politicians. There is never, ever a cut-and-dried answer on success or failure because too many variables exist.
Case in point: ****e’s recent trumpeting that their re-broadcast of July 11’s UFC 100 event last Saturday pummeled “Strikeforce: Carano vs. ‘Cyborg’” in “the advertiser-coveted demographic” of males 18-34 (513,000 UFC viewers vs. 181,000 for Strikeforce). According to MMAJunkie, the UFC’s two million overall audience snickered at the 576,000 suckers watching Showtime. (I’m paraphrasing. They were more polite about it.)
It’s a seemingly obvious victory for the bigger, stronger promotion -- particularly considering their product came pre-spoiled -- but when you consider that Showtime is available in only one-fifth of the households as ****e and nabbed a similar share of their available viewership, it becomes substantially less impressive. Relative to their respective potential audience -- 21 million for Showtime compared to 98 million for ****e -- Showtime actually outdrew UFC 100. It was also the highest-rated MMA broadcast for the network ever, beating out the 522,000 viewers who gaped at Kevin Ferguson’s mugging of David Abbott in February 2008.
In the past, Showtime has drawn similar numbers for premiere episodes of popular series, but it’s not often that CBS bleats that “CSI: Miami” beat them. It’s an apple/oranges comparison. And it doesn’t take into account any viewers who will catch replays of the event on the Showtime On Demand funnel.
The only way you’re going to get a clear victory on a level playing field is to have a UFC broadcast on an over-air network (NBC, ABC, or Fox) against a Strikeforce show on CBS. And if those numbers don’t favor one promotion, you can bet they’ll mention how they beat the competing program in the highly-valued one-legged-albinos-with-dysentery demo.
Television spins numbers with the expertise of politicians. There is never, ever a cut-and-dried answer on success or failure because too many variables exist.
Case in point: ****e’s recent trumpeting that their re-broadcast of July 11’s UFC 100 event last Saturday pummeled “Strikeforce: Carano vs. ‘Cyborg’” in “the advertiser-coveted demographic” of males 18-34 (513,000 UFC viewers vs. 181,000 for Strikeforce). According to MMAJunkie, the UFC’s two million overall audience snickered at the 576,000 suckers watching Showtime. (I’m paraphrasing. They were more polite about it.)
It’s a seemingly obvious victory for the bigger, stronger promotion -- particularly considering their product came pre-spoiled -- but when you consider that Showtime is available in only one-fifth of the households as ****e and nabbed a similar share of their available viewership, it becomes substantially less impressive. Relative to their respective potential audience -- 21 million for Showtime compared to 98 million for ****e -- Showtime actually outdrew UFC 100. It was also the highest-rated MMA broadcast for the network ever, beating out the 522,000 viewers who gaped at Kevin Ferguson’s mugging of David Abbott in February 2008.
In the past, Showtime has drawn similar numbers for premiere episodes of popular series, but it’s not often that CBS bleats that “CSI: Miami” beat them. It’s an apple/oranges comparison. And it doesn’t take into account any viewers who will catch replays of the event on the Showtime On Demand funnel.
The only way you’re going to get a clear victory on a level playing field is to have a UFC broadcast on an over-air network (NBC, ABC, or Fox) against a Strikeforce show on CBS. And if those numbers don’t favor one promotion, you can bet they’ll mention how they beat the competing program in the highly-valued one-legged-albinos-with-dysentery demo.