Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Faced with a ton of sports competition, including the NBA and NHL playoffs, as well as both HBO and Showtime boxing with major stars, Saturday night's UFC show on FOX did a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demo and 2.43 million viewers based on the overnight ratings.
The viewership number would be slightly higher than predictions while the demo number would be at expected levels.
As always, the overnight ratings only cover the 8-10 p.m. live showing in the Eastern time zone, as well as the corresponding times in the Central and Mountain time zone. It covers an 8-10 p.m. time slot on the West Coast, which measures what FOX affiliates had on during that slot, and not the UFC show, which aired starting at 5 p.m. It also doesn't include any period after 10 p.m., which was the main event and post-match, which would have been expected to be the highest rated part of the show.
Since the main event ended with Luke Rockhold finishing Lyoto Machida at 2:31 of the second round, the show didn't go nearly as long as many of the previous UFC on FOX shows, meaning less time to build a larger main event audience. That means the growth when the actual numbers come out on Monday or Tuesday will not be as large as many of the previous shows.
The number is virtually identical with the NHL number on NBC for a New York Rangers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins game that also did an 0.9 in the key demo, and 2.41 million viewers. One would expect the UFC show to do better when figuring in the West Coast, given a West Coast fighter in the main event in Rockhold. UFC is also traditionally stronger on the West Coast, and the NHL game had two Northeast teams.
FOX and NBC tied in the 18-49 demo for first place among the four networks, although ABC and CBS both drew far more viewers overall. The latter networks had programming that hit the 50-and-over demo far stronger, most notably 20/20 on ABC and 48 Hours on CBS. 20/20 was the highest-rated show in the demo in the overnights, with a 1.0, and had 5.85 million viewers. Most likely both FOX and NBC will beat that 1.0 when the final numbers come in. 48 Hours at 10 p.m. was the highest-rated show of the night with a 0.9 in the demo and 6.25 million viewers.
UFC on FOX, NHL on NBC virtually deadlocked in overnight ratings - MMA Fighting
