I’ve done this before but I have no idea what I’m missing.
I started the project as a single View project.
Then converted the ViewController to inherit from UITableViewController like so:
@interface ViewController : UITableViewController
went into the .xib for this ViewController and changed the class in the Custom Class section form UIView to UITableView:

Looking in my other project(s) where the ViewControllers are just straight TableView controllers, I don’t see what else needs to be done, but when I run the app or when I view the xib it’s not showing a tableview.
You’ll need to drag out a UITableView in Interface Builder to replace the UIView. Then add the UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate protocols to your view controllers header file and connect the datasource and delegate outlets from your UITableView to your view controller in Interface Builder.