Almost 39M Tune In for McCain Speech
Fox News Channel draws lion's share of viewers again with 9.2M from 10 p.m.-11:15 p.m.
By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/5/2008 2:52:00 PM
Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) acceptance speech on the final night of the Republican National Convention Thursday was seen by 38.9 million viewers across the broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen Media Research.
That's a few hundred-thousand more than the 38.3 million who watched Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) deliver his acceptance speech one week earlier at the Democratic National Convention.
Once again, Fox News Channel reaped the lion's share of viewers, with 9.2 million watching McCain's speech on the network. That was more than CNN (4.8 million) and MSNBC (2.5 million) combined. In fact, nearly one-quarter of the 38.9 million viewers who tuned in from 10 p.m.-11:15 p.m. were watching Fox News.
It was the second night of record viewing for Fox News, with McCain's speech and that of his running mate, Sarah Palin, tied as the most-watched political-convention telecasts in Fox News and cable news history.
NBC News was the leader among the broadcast networks, attracting 8.7 million viewers from 10 p.m.-11:15 p.m., followed by ABC (6 million) and CBS (5.3 million).
Additionally, The O'Reilly Factor had its second-most-watched program ever Thursday with 6.68 million for Bill O'Reilly's interview with Obama. The biggest Factor audience was in March 2003, when 7.3 million viewers tuned in on the evening of President Bush's address about the invasion of Iraq.
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PBS Needs 24-hr news channel. The 20 mil. who depend on OTA broadcast couldn't get the conventions until 8 p.m. on PBS.
Only citizens who could afford cable/satellite got the historic and dramatic Dem roll call. PBS is not fulfilling its charter. It should have created an all news TV channel years ago. Now, with DTV, it's got the bandwidth.
The commercial cable nets focus on breaking news, car chases and celebutates. There's a wide open market here... the ratings for the PBS convention coverage prove it. But PBS should have gone gavel to gavel, and PBS should create a 24-hr. newser within the next six months, when it can capitalize on the digital transition. Use NPR and News Hour as the backbones and expand out from there.
Vic Livingston, columnist, nowpublic.com/scrivener - 9/6/2008 1:19:00 AM EDT -
If you were to add PBS’s estimated viewers into the
mix, Obama slightly beat out McCain’s speech, 41.9
million to 41.6 million viewers.
blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/05/mccain-scores-with-
tv-viewers/
Pat - 9/5/2008 4:21:00 PM EDT -
Nielsen''s numbers don''t count PBS.
PBS says 3.5 million watched Obama.
No word yet on McCain.
Sid - 9/5/2008 4:17:00 PM EDT
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