The struggles facing UFC’s fifteenth season of “The Ultimate Fighter”–the first featuring the “Ultimate Fight Live” moniker–continued Friday.
Friday’s installment of the mixed martial arts reality series, which jumped from Spike TV to FX for the current season, drew a mere 0.5 adults 18-49 rating and just 947,000 viewers. A series low point for “TUF,” Friday’s episode did not even land in the top 25 for cable shows among young adult (18-49) viewers.
There was expected to be an adjustment period associated with the move to a new network–and a new night–but that “adjustment bias” would not explain why the show has fallen notably in the demo and with total viewers since premiering in March. Clearly, neither the live format nor this season’s dynamic is enough to create a “must-see” feeling for more than a small core of the fanbase.
