UFC on Fox 7 took place this past weekend in San Jose, California and featured Benson Henderson retaining his UFC lightweight championship by defeated former Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez via split decision.
According to Nielsen, the events preliminary rating landed at 3.31 million viewers with a #1 adult 18-49 rating (for the night) landing at 1.5 with a 5 share.
This number was a 12% decrease overall from UFC on Fox 6 in January which hit roughly 3.77 million viewers. Although, it should be noted that this preliminary number is merely and average and it will go up, especially with the overrun over at 10 P.M.
It should also be noted that several local Fox affiliates DID NOT air the announcement of the winner of the main event, nor Henderson’s surprise engagement request during his post-fight interview. As of right now, it is mostly people in the northeast, specifically New England, which was impacted, across several different cable providers including Comcast Xfinity and Verizon FIOS.
When it came to the nights competition, the UFC easily beat out the rest in the adult 18-49 demographic but lost out to a repeat episode of CBS’s Vegas and The Mentalist when it came to overall viewership. Vegas garnered roughly 4.32 million viewers at 8 P.M. and The Mentalist hit about 4.76 at 9 P.M. Both were sub 0.6 and 2 shares in the key adult 18-49 demographic number.
Once again, I need to remind everyone these preliminary numbers are going to be adjust up and do not include the UFC’s primarily focused male demographic number, the overrun nor peak viewership numbers which will all be out later this week.