UFC on FOX overnight ratings as good as could be expected

Last night’s UFC on FOX event did 2.13 million viewers based on the overnight ratings, but led FOX to winning a weak night overall in the 18-49 demo.

The number is about as good as you’d hope for considering it was an April show where two of the top three fights changed late in the game.

The 0.8 in the overnights beat ABC’s 0.6 with rerun programming, beat CBS’ 0.5 with rerun programming and NBC’s 0.3 with live Premier Boxing.

Because of viewership mostly with older viewers, when it came to overall viewers, ABC and CBS all beat FOX.  NBC did not as the boxing only did 1.24 million viewers, which is a terrible prime time number, even for Saturday, for first-run programming.

It should be noted that the final number will be up somewhat for NBC and FOX because the number measures viewership for FOX stations from 8-10 p.m. on the West Coast, when they were airing other programming since UFC aired from 5-7 p.m.

The growth will be less than usual because the main event ended right around 10 p.m. due to Glover Teixeira knocking out Rashad Evans in just 1:48.  Usually the final rating growth includes both the West Coast viewership and the post-10 p.m. viewership which is always the largest rated portion of the show.  That’s why five round main events are so valuable when it comes to ratings and why they stalled to have the main event start past 9:50 p.m., hoping for it to go long.

The original card featured a top three fights of Tony Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov, but Ferguson was injured and Nurmagomedov instead beat unknown Darrell Horcher; Teixiera vs. Evans and Dan Henderson vs. Lyoto Machida, the ladder canceled when Machida was provisionally suspended on a PED violation for admitting use of a supplement that contained banned DHEA.

Last year’s show in April headlined by Machida vs. Luke Rockhold, which was a much stronger match at the time, did 2.43 million on the overnights and ended up with the West Coast at 2,745,000 viewers.

For this show, a final number of 2.35 million or greater should be considered okay.