IFL ratings are in and they’re not very good

November 6, 2007 – 12:20 pm by fightlinker

Sam Caplan is reporting that the IFL live show drew a .4 rating on Saturday night:

It’s believed that the company considers the show a success because the numbers were a 20% increase from the previous week’s taped broadcast. MyNetworkTV was also able to sell out the ad inventory for the hour and there was additional press coverage of the IFL leading up to the first live telecast.

Right now a plan is being put in place to secure a two-hour live telecast on MyNetworkTV for the World Grand Prix finals on Dec. 29. that would start at 8 p.m. ET. The lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, and heavyweight titles would be decided with the idea of the show serving as an unofficial lead-in for the UFC 79 pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET.

MyNetworkTV might consider 0.4 a success, but to put things in context, the first three weeks of IFL Battleground drew a 0.7, 0.6, and 0.8 rating. To me, the current ratings they’re getting are pretty dismal because instead of representing the 0.4 that watched, it really shows how many viewers they’ve lost and can’t get back even with the promise of live shows.

This just confirms that there’s no quick fix that will make things better for the IFL … a lot of people have already made their minds up regarding the quality of their product and are sick of wasting their time on it.

I hope new head honcho Jay Larkin pushes his ideas through and makes a very clear distinction between this season and the next one, because if I didn’t have to cover the IFL on account of running this site, I wouldn’t bother coming back unless there were major obvious changes.