SATURDAY NIGHT COMES ALIVE ON TV

Once again, ratings for Saturday night — a night virtually abandoned by all the broadcast networks on the theory that most people are out doing something else, rather than watching TV, on that night — demonstrated that viewers will tune in if they’re given something appealing to watch. ABC’s NCAA football game between Oregon and Stanford averaged 7.13 million viewers. Fox’s season debut of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) counted 5.7 million viewers, even though the actual fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos, which ended in a technical knockout by Velasquez, lasted only 64 seconds. And CBS’s coverage of the South Carolina Republican debate averaged 5.48 million viewers.