Re: September 2. News & Mentionings - Pam and Mike out and about
Here is another MJ Obama mention
Obama Speech: Bigger Than 'Idol' Finale
By Roger Catlin on August 29, 2008 11:43 PM |
Permalink |
Comments (1)
More than 40 million people likely watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech Thursday, Nielsen said, besting the "American Idol" finale in May, the Academy Awards and the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.
With more than a fourth of the nation tuned in, it may be the most watched convention speech ever.
Only the Super Bowl and three other playoff games had more people watching this year, Nielsen said.
It nearly doubled the number of people watching John Kerry's acceptance speech four years ago (possibly having something to do with realative strengths of oratory).
Of course the speech was carried on eleven networks (as opposed to the "Idol" finale).But the four days of the convention in Denver averaged 22.5 million households -- far more than any previously recorded.
Ten commercial networks carrying the speech -- ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo.-- brought in 38,4 million viewers, Nielsen said. And PBS, which isn't counted by Nielsen drew its own record amount of viewers -- 4 million.
(And all of this doesn't count CSPAN, where I was doing my watching).
It was a big audience, but maybe not Michael Jackson big. The Obama speech was the fifth highest rated non-sports broadcast watched by African-Americans in the last 11 years (No.1 was Jackson's oddball 30th anniversary concert featuring a reunion of the Jacksons in 2001).
CNN was first among networks -- even the broadcast ones -- with 8.1 million watching. ABC was next with 6.6 million for their hour of coverage, NBC third with 6.1 million, CBS trailing with 4.7 million.
Fox News' 4.12 million narrowly edged MSNBC's 4.1 million.
The Republicans will have to do a lot from St. Paul next week to match those numbers.
http://blogs.courant.com/roger_catlin_tv_eye/2008/08/obama-speech-bigger-than-idol.html