Last year, UFC and FOX announced a huge 7 year TV deal worth as much as $90-$100 million per year, which would move UFC programming from Spike TV to FOX, FX, FSN’s, and Fuel TV. Now that Q1 of 2012 has passed, we look back and analyze what type of impact UFC programming had on the FOX properties and how the new platforms have impacted the UFC.

NETWORK: FOX (112M households) Q1 Ratings:

UFC on FOX:

UFC on FOX 1: Velasquez vs Dos Santos: 5.7M, 3.1 household rating (1 Hour Block, 1 Fight)

household rating (1 Hour Block, 1 Fight) UFC on FOX 2: Evans vs Davis: 4.7M, 2.6 household rating (2.5 Hour Block, 3 Fights)

Q1 Average: 5.2M … Trend: Down

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NETWORK: FX (99M households) Q1 RATINGS:

TUF LIVE:

TUF Live Episode 1 – 1.3M

TUF Live Episode 2 – 1.1M

TUF Live Episode 3 – 1.2M

TUF Live Episode 4 – 1.054M

Q1 Average: 1.16M Viewers, Trend: Down

TUF Season Average Rating (last 5 seasons) on Spike TV:

TUF 14 Season on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.5M viewers

TUF 13 Season on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.3M viewers

TUF 12 Season on Spike TV (2010) Averaged 1.74M viewers

TUF 11 Season on Spike TV (2010) Averaged 1.65M viewers

TUF 10 Season on Spike TV (2009) Averaged 3M viewers

TUF Season Average (last 5 seasons) on Spike TV: 1.84M Viewers

Spike TV Comparable Trend: Down



UFC on FX:

UFC on FX 1: 1.3M

UFC on FX 2: 1.4M

Q1 Average: 1.35M Viewers, Trend: Up, Flat

UFN Average Rating (last 5 events) on Spike TV:

UFN 25 on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.8M viewers

UFN 24 on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 2.2M viewers

UFN 23 on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.85M viewers

UFN 22 on Spike TV (2010) Averaged 1.2M viewers

UFN 21 on Spike TV (2010) Averaged 1.6M viewers

UFN Average (last 5 events) on Spike TV: 1.73M Viewers

Spike TV Comparable Trend: Down



UFC Primetime:

“UFC Primetime: Diaz vs. Condit” (Episode 1): 657,000 viewers

“UFC Primetime: Diaz vs. Condit” (Episode 2): 520,000 viewers

“UFC Primetime: Diaz vs. Condit” (Episode 3): 442,000 viewers

Q1 Average: 540,000 Viewers, Trend: Down

UFC Primetime Debut Episode Ratings (last 5 events) on Spike TV:

UFC Primetime: GSP vs Shields on Spike TV (2011): 610K viewers

UFC Primetime: Lesnar vs Velasquez on Spike TV (2010): 974K viewers

UFC Primetime: Rampage vs Evans on Spike TV (2011): 1.2M viewers

UFC Primetime: GSP vs Hardy on Spike TV (2010): 1M viewers

UFC Primetime: GSP vs Penn II on Spike TV (2009): 880K viewers

UFC Primetime Debut Episodes (last 5) Average on Spike TV: 933K Viewers

Spike TV Comparable Trend: Down, Flat





UFC on FX Prelims:

UFC 142 Prelims: 880K

UFC 143 Prelims: 1.4M

UFC 144 Prelims: 1.5M

Q1 Average: 1.26M, Trend: Up

UFC Prelims Average Rating (last 5 events) on Spike TV:

UFC 141 Season on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.8M viewers

UFC 139 Season on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.2M viewers

UFC 137 Season on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.1M viewers

UFC 136 Season on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1M viewers

UFC 135 Season on Spike TV (2011) Averaged 1.6M viewers

Previous 5 UFC Prelims Average on Spike TV: 1.34M Viewers

Spike TV Comparable Trend: Flat



FX & SpikeTV: 2012 (Q1) Primetime Vs. 2011 (Q1) Primetime :

FX

– Men 18-49= -20%

– Men 18-34= -21%

Trend: Down

Spike

– Men 18-49 = +4%

– Men 18-34= +7%

Trend: Up

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NETWORK: FUEL TV (36M Households) Q1 RATINGS:

UFC on FUEL:

– UFC on Fuel TV 1: 217,000

UFC on Fuel Prelims:

UFC on FX1 Fuel Prelims: 148,000

UFC on FOX 2 Prelims: 144,000

UFC on FX 2 Fuel Prelims: 113,000

Q1 Average: 135,000, Trend: Down

UFC Tonight:

UFC Tonight Episode 1: 39,000

UFC Tonight Episode 2: 20,000

UFC Tonight Episode 3: 61,000

…

Q1 Average: 63,000, Trend: Up

Overall Q1 Ratings Analysis (Fuel TV PR):

– Fuel TV is television’s fastest-growing cable network this year, according to figures released by Nielsen Media Research. In both the Total Day and Prime Time, the network recorded the largest percentage increases of total viewers among all rated, ad-supported cable networks in the first quarter of 2012.

– Fuel TV continued its unprecedented ratings increases in March, following the growth trend that began in January when Ultimate Fighting Championship® programming began to dominate key day-parts. February was the network’s most-watched month ever, featuring its first live UFC fight, which delivered the channel its most-watched program, most-watched Prime Time and most-watched week.

– Fuel TV aired 233 hours of UFC programming in February and added another 213 hours in March. FUEL TV telecast 646 hours of UFC programming in the first three months of 2012.

– Q1 2012 was FUEL TV’s most-watched in network history, finishing up +100% in Total Viewers and up +125% in M18-49 vs. Q1 2011

– Q1 Prime Time viewership increased +200% in Total Viewers and +260% among M18-49 vs. the same quarter last year

– Q1 Late Night increased +222% on Total Viewers and +275% among M18-49 compared to Q1 in 2011.

Payout Perspective:

Making a conclusion as to whether the UFC and FOX TV deal is a success or failure based on only the Q1 ratings would obviously be premature, but it also doesn’t mean we can’t start to look at the performance of UFC content on the FOX platforms.

The obvious observations here after Q1 has to be how much UFC has helped out Fuel TV, not only in terms of ratings, but also increasing their reach from 30M to 36M since the TV announcement was made back in 2011. However, Fuel TV at the end of the day only reaches 1/3 of the households that Spike TV reached while still being one of the lowest rated networks in cable TV, so unless Fuel’s reach picks up – doesn’t look like that will be the case until the end of the year at the earliest – the UFC will consistently be placing the majority of their content on a channel that only reaches a fraction of what Spike TV gets.

FOX is doing a great job at exposing the UFC product to the masses, but the last event was actually a big drop-off from the first event as every fight went to a decision and almost tripled the length of UFC on FOX 1. Not to mention that four shows a year is just not enough frequency for the casuals. Getting mainstream sponsors for the FOX events has also not been as easy as was expected when the deal was made last year. The ratings drop of the second show caused for the UFC to create “fun and exciting” match-ups for UFC on FOX 3 rather than book big names in hope that casuals will tune in and stick around for “fan-friendly” and exciting booked fights.

FX and the newly revamped “TUF Live” were a big part of the TV deal with TUF being the key platform the UFC uses to create future stars and PPV draws. So far, the show has been a disappointment (in terms of ratings) with all-time rating lows for the series. Dana White and the UFC brass predicted that they could very well reach 3 million viewers for TUF on FX if they were getting around 1.5 million on Spike TV without any promotion. Well, that prediction hasn’t panned out yet, even with heavy promotion leading up the the debut on FX. More shocking is that after UFC moved to FX, FX network’s M18-34 and M18-49 demos have decreased compared to Q1 2011 while Spike’s have gone up. FX dedicating Friday nights as “UFC Nights”, a day which is notorious for bad ratings and when the M18-34 demographic is not at home in front of their TV sets, has also not panned out for the UFC yet. Moving the content to mid-week could be a solution, but FX is happy enough with the Friday night ratings since it’s an improvement from what they get with non-UFC content, so it looks like the UFC will have to ride this out for the time being.

There is something to be said about the simplicity of being a UFC fan and being able to find all the content you needed on one network. Now, with multiple platforms designated with different UFC content, fans are having a difficult time migrating from Spike TV (who will continue to air UFC content through 2012) to multiple FOX platforms. FOX only shows UFC events 4 times a year, FX only on Fridays and sometimes on Saturday, while Fuel TV has designated days where they show no UFC content at all despite airing over 200+ hours of UFC programming a month . The complexity for the typical MMA TV viewer has definitely increased since the deal, but regardless of the vast TV programming now available, MMA fans can always count on tuning in on Saturday nights – usually once a month – to catch a big PPV event. That is a consistent and simple message the UFC has promoted for years and one that still works. It gets hundreds-of-thousands of UFC fans pumped up for a UFC weekend. Sometimes, simplicity can be bliss.