Saturday night’s UFC on FOX show ended up as the second highest rated of the four July FOX specials in history, averaging 2.29 million viewers on the overnights. It should be noted that the overnight number did not measure any of the T.J. Dillashaw vs. Ranan Barao main event, so the final numbers should be significantly higher.
Saturday night’s UFC on FOX 16 show, headlined by T.J. Dillashaw’s bantamweight title defense over Renan Barao, did 2.29 million viewers last night on FOX, giving it an easy win in the key demos among the major networks, and finishing second place overall to CBS according to TV By the Numbers.
It should be noted that the overnight ratings in this case is a preliminary indication of the actual rating. The most important early take is that of the four July FOX specials, which date back to 2012, this show was the second highest, even though this rating doesn’t even take the main event itself into account.
The overnights measure the 8-10 p.m. time slot in the Eastern time zone, and its corresponding 7-9 p.m. in Central time zone and 6-8 p.m. in the Mountain time zone. However, it also measures 8-10 p.m. in the Pacific time zone, and as a live sports event, the show aired starting at 5 p.m. on the West Coast. So this rating measures whatever programming the local FOX stations were airing from 8-10 p.m. and not the UFC.
In addition, with the rating only measuring 8-10 p.m., it is a rating of only the first three fights since the main event itself started at 10 p.m. The final numbers, which would be for the entire show nationwide, will be out on Monday or Tuesday. They would be expected to grow significantly from the original estimate..
The number falls in line with most of the overnight numbers for UFC’s annual July show. It was up 13 percent from last July’s show headlined by Robbie Lawler, before he was welterweight champion, against Matt Brown, which did 2.02 million viewers in the overnights. The 2013 show did 2.04 in the overnights with the Demetrious Johnson flyweight title defense against John Moraga. The 2012 show did 2.36 million viewers, headlined by Mauricio “Shogun” Rua vs. Brandon Vera.
The 0.9 in the key 18-49 demo easily won its time slot in the network battle against weak counter programming. The second place finisher were two repeats of Battlebots, a show which features former UFC star Kenny Florian as an announcer, which averaged an 0.5.
For overall viewers, CBS drew 3.49 million viewers for an NCIS Los Angeles repeat, and 3.35 million viewers for a Scorpion repeat, but since CBS skews so much older, both shows only averaged an 0.4 in the key demo.
The most recent UFC on FOX show, which aired on April 18, with Luke Rockhold vs. Lyoto Machida as the main event, did 2.43 million viewers on the overnights.