In a less-than-dreamy scenario, Fight Entertainment Group’s Dream MMA brand has been ousted from primetime television on the Tokyo Broadcasting System.
The change comes after the debut edition of Dream garnered lackluster ratings in a make-or-break scenario for FEG and TBS.
The event grabbed only an 8.9 percent rating average on TBS in primetime, according to Japan’s Video Research Ltd. The telecast’s peak was a 12.7 for the Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic bout against Tatsuya Mizuno , which was edited into the main event slot due to the no-contest debacle in the Shinya Aoki (Pictures)-Gesias Calvancante fight — the show’s true main event. TBS was fifth out of the six major Japanese networks during the time slot, besting only the perennial sixth-place finisher, TV Tokyo.
The ratings were crucial for the primetime continuation of FEG’s MMA product. Rumors within the Japanese MMA community surfaced late last year suggesting that TBS could take FEG’s Hero’s promotion out of primetime due to sagging, lackluster ratings.
Although FEG’s restructuring of its MMA program and the invention of Dream were celebrated by hardcore MMA fans, the move was not an altruistic one. Rather, it was an attempt to revitalize FEG’s MMA product and ignite interest on television.
TBS is now scheduled to air the forthcoming April 29 Dream card on a week’s tape delay in heavily edited one-hour installments. The broadcasts will air both in afternoon and after-midnight timeslots. However, future Dream events will air live on SkyPerfecTV pay-per-view.
The announcement is in no way a death knell for the revamped promotion. Pay-per-view is not a lucrative medium in Japan, though, as it is in North America. Being forced out of primetime does heavily slash advertising revenues for FEG, which will limit the ability for the promotion’s growth in the foreseeable future.
For the time being, FEG continues to have television success with its central kickboxing brands, K-1 and K-1 Max. The April 9 K-1 Max telecast on TBS garnered a 12.4 percent rating average in primetime on TBS, and the April 13 K-1 telecast in primetime on Fuji Television scored a 12.8 percent. The only sports programming to score higher thus far in April was the April 5 Nippon Professional Baseball game between the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers, which notched a 13.8 rating on NHK.
Despite the disappointing news, there is some measure of a silver lining for hardcore fans. With the shift to pay-per-view, Dream’s future events will air unedited, in their entirety. This will resolve the usual griping regarding the heavily edited product created to air in a two-hour primetime television slot, which often leaves many fights unaired or shown only in highlight form. The April 29 Dream pay-per-view telecast is scheduled for roughly six hours of pay-per-view time, broadcasting live from 4:00 p.m. to 9:55 p.m. Tokyo time.
Also, with the shift out of primetime on TBS, the Dream pay-per-view telecast will feature the return of Daisuke Sato, the influential video director who was responsible for the much-celebrated pre-fight promo packages for Pride.
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SOURCE: sherdog.com
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