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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Saturday's UFC 133 "Prelims Live" on Spike TV brought in an average audience of 1.4 million viewers for the hour long broadcast.
Due to all of the fights on the Facebook preliminary card going to decision, only two fights aired during the Spike TV broadcast, as Chad Mendes earned a decision over Rani Yahya and Alexander Gustafsson taking out Matt Hamill by TKO in the second round.
The broadcast peaked during the Gustafsson-Hamill fight with 1,436,000 viewers, but dropped off in the last quarter due to the final sell before the pay-per-view. It drew a 1.0 household rating, while garnering a 1.13 rating in the men 18-49 demographic and a .9 in the all persons 18-49 demo. Those ratings made it the most watched program during that hour for the 18-49 demos.
Penick's Analysis: Considering it was the first UFC event in the month, these numbers sound right. It's right in with what most of the events do, a little bit above the low end but still in average with what the broadcasts usually bring in. The Mendes-Yahya fight wasn't the most thrilling fight for free TV, but the Gustafsson-Hamill fight was a good scrap with a great performance from Gustafsson especially. Having no other fight to close out the final 10-15 minutes didn't help the average, as fans likely tuned away to catch the end of something else before the pay-per-view started, or to catch the end of the preview for the event before it started. Either way, it got some viewers turning away, bringing down the overall number for the hour.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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