UFC On Fox 2 Overnight Ratings Are In

The second effort by the UFC on Fox was rather inconsistent in action and had many people wondering how the ratings would look. The overnight numbers are in and they are quite interesting.

Via TV By The Numbers:

FOX easily cruised to victory in adults 18-49 with two hours of UFC on FOX 2 with a fight card headlined by Evans vs. Davis. Again, these numbers are far more likely to be adjusted (and adjusted up) than normal due to the nature of live programming. But in the preliminary non time zone adjusted numbers the fight card averaged a 2.2 adults 18-49 rating between 8-10p and 4.37 million viewers.

As they said, the numbers will be adjusted up in the final numbers but it's entirely fair to compare this directly to the overnight ratings of the first Fox show.

The first show had overnights of a 2.5 rating and 7 share in the 18-49 demographic with 4.64 million viewers (source) for the one hour broadcast. By comparison, hour one of last night's show had a 2.0 rating and 6 share with 3.98 million viewers while hour two went up to a 2.5 rating, 7 share and 4.77 million viewers. I have no doubt that the slow intro to the show combined with a fairly horrible first fight led to a lot of people tuning out until the main event, which would explain the big gain in the second hour.

It's clear that the very short fight in the debut show didn't chase off all the viewers at the very least.

SBN coverage of UFC on Fox 2