UFC 125 "UFC Prelims" draws 829,000 viewers

http://mmajunkie.com/news/21971/ufc-125-ufc-prelims-draws-829000-viewers-on-ion-television.mma
While many MMA fans had little knowledge of ION Television before the network partnered with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, more than three-quarters-of-a-million viewers were able to find the channel this past weekend.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today learned from industry sources that this past weekend's "UFC Prelims" special, which featured a trio of live fights from "UFC 125: Resolution," drew an average of 829,000 viewers.

This past weekend's one-hour special marked the UFC's debut on ION Television. Past editions of "UFC Prelims" have aired on Spike TV and UFC.com.

Prior to UFC 125, the most recent edition of "UFC Prelims" to air on TV was "UFC 123: Rampage vs. Machida," which drew 1.5 million viewers. The figures for this past weekend's event mark a 44 percent decrease from the November broadcast of UFC 123.

UFC 124 also featured two fights streaming live on UFC.com, though the promotion did not reveal the number of online viewers that tuned in.

UFC officials have yet to announce if the promotion will continue to provide content to ION Television, which was launched in 1998 as PAX TV, was rebranded as Ion Television in 2007. The channel was also known as i from 2005 to 2007.

•1) UFC 109 (February 2010): 1.7 million viewers
•2) UFC 114 (May 2010): 1.6 million viewers
•3) UFC 108 (January 2010): 1.5 million viewers
•3) UFC 121 (October 2010): 1.5 million viewers
•3) UFC 123 (November 2010): 1.5 million viewers
•6) UFC 104 (October 2009): 1.4 million viewers
•6) UFC 103 (September 2009): 1.4 million viewers
•8.) UFC 119 (September 2010): 1.3 million viewers
•8.) UFC 116 (July 2010): 1.3 million viewers
•8.) UFC 115 (June 2010): 1.3 million viewers
•8.) UFC 106 (November 2009): 1.3 million viewers
•12) UFC 111 (March 2010): 1.2 million viewers
•13) UFC 118 (August 2010): 1.1 million viewers
•14) UFC 125 (January 2011): 829,000 viewers* * - Aired on ION Television

[i]

829 isnt to bad because I didnt even know ion existed before Saturday night.

I feel the same way. A lot of people probably turned in to Spike and were like "well I guess there's no prelims this time."

Yeah they didn't do a great job of advertising that it would be on Ion and not Spike.

Yeah no one that I know had any idea it was on ION until I told them.

Ludo wrote:

Yeah they didn't do a great job of advertising that it would be on Ion and not Spike.

Yeah i didnt even know it was ION until the weigh-ins.

It is kind of hard to advertise fights for a network no one has any clue about out though, if these people aren't regulars on one of the MMA news sites

Yeah it was all over the UFC website.

I'm a regular on this MMA news site and I didn't even know until someone here mentioned it about an hour before prelims.

i hope the numbers continue going down i dont have this fucking Ion thing

Birdofthad wrote:

i hope the numbers continue going down i dont have this fucking Ion thing

LMFAO

It was onviously due to being on ION, and ION is more then likely just being used as a bargaining tool against Spike, I highly doubt we'll see much more in the future on ION.

i think your spot on LA

I dug ION. 3 fights and little commercial action

Yeah 3 fights is great.

I think Dana was saying that they only have so many spots per year on Spike and they would at times have to use other stations. Why that would be the case Jan 1 though, idk. I got the sense it was because they have plans to do a lot of prelims and free events though this year. Probably saving them to counter SF shows no doubt.