There have been some visible growing pains for Bellator on the new Paramount Network.
Though Paramount and Spike, which Bellator called home since 2013, are technically the same channel, ratings have dropped since parent company Viacom rebranded the station in January. Bellator 197 represented a new low-water mark for the Scott Coker era, averaging just 242,000 viewers on Paramount. The four cards before that averaged fewer than 500,000 viewers. Just about every figure is down in the Spike-to-Paramount transition.
While the number of the channel has not changed, Paramount has a whole new personality compared to Spike, which for a long time was billed as a men’s network.