"Republican presidential candidate John McCain attracted a record 38.9 million television viewers to his acceptance speech last night, surpassing Democratic rival Barack Obama and McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin.
The total exceeded the 38.4 million who watched Obama accept the Democratic nomination in Denver on Aug. 28, Nielsen Media Research said today in a statement. Palin drew 37.2 million on Sept. 3 after three days of intense media coverage.
The last night of the Republican gathering in St. Paul, Minnesota, was seen in 28.3 million homes, breaking the record of the 27.7 million who watched Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. McCain's ratings are the highest for a political convention since Nielsen began collecting data in 1960.
``This is likely to be a high turnout election,'' said Darrell West, a vice president of the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan policy research group in Washington. ``There were record turnouts in all of the caucus and primary states, we have had a record number of contributors and now we have a record number of television viewers.''
CBS, ABC, NBC and the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo broadcast McCain's speech. It was carried on cable by MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. In addition to those, Obama's address at Denver's Invesco field also aired on Black Entertainment Television and TV One, channels primarily geared to black audiences. Those networks didn't air McCain's speech.
On average, 22.6 million viewers tuned into coverage of the Republican convention each day. The Republicans canceled most of the events on Sept. 1, citing Hurricane Gustav. Democrats averaged 20.4 million viewers over four days, Nielsen said.
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Combined, McCain and Palin, who is Alaska's first-term governor, drew 76.2 million viewers, compared with the 62.4 million who tuned in to see Obama and running mate Joe Biden, the Democratic senator from Delaware. Biden drew 24 million viewers to his Aug. 27 speech.
McCain's viewership also exceeded the former Republican record of 21.9 million who tuned in to the 1976 convention, when President Gerald Ford won the nomination over Ronald Reagan; and the 20.7 million who watched the 1980 Democratic convention when President Jimmy Carter beat back a challenge by Senator Edward Kennedy. The Democrats' record stood until Obama's speech.
The Republican nominee's audience last night also exceeded the typical nightly viewing for the Beijing Olympics, a separate Nielsen report showed. U.S. Olympics viewers averaged 27.7 million a night, making the games the most watched."
The line "Obama's address at Denver's Invesco field also aired on Black Entertainment Television and TV One, channels primarily geared to black audiences. Those networks didn't air McCain's speech." worries me. There is a more than a tinge of racism inherent in that action. Why do the channels "primarily geared to black audiences" assume that their viewers will not be interested in what John McCain has to say and that their viewers will be voting for Barack Obama? If a small news channel decided not to show Obama's speech but showed McCain's the cries of racism would not be far away.
Your numbers for McCain, if accurate, are purely because no one knew anything and still doesn't about what McCain stands for, so they tuned in to find out. People had to tune in to the Republicans to see what they are up to and witnessed them pull the stunt with unknown, inexperienced and unpopular Palin; and to see McCain suddenly change his tune to Obama's message of Change. Republicans -- the party of fear -- offer more of the same. Americans cannot afford 4 more years of economic and social destruction. And McCain changes his tune like the wind blows to win the election with trickery and stunts. How come no mention that he is aligned with Bush, and denied his long-standing connection to Bush. America is ripe with racists who do not give Obama fair airtime, which you have declined to report. What about CBS and Gallup leaning toward McCain? How fair is that? Why should anyone who is middle-class, ethnic, female, gay, lesbian, poor, or disenfranchised white people have to tolerate Republicans who do not care about their issues. So let's see if the moderator posts this comment or will you not "air" it like you accused black TV networks, because it disagrees with your beliefs?
ReplyDeleteYour views are typical of the closed mind of many leftists on both sides of the Atlantic.
ReplyDeleteYour choice of the word "stunt" is interesting, why a "stunt"? Who should John McCain have appointed as his running mate?
You accuse John McCain of changing his mind like the wind blows, have you followed Barack Obama's changes of mind?
Over in the UK, the coverage of the US Presidential election has been massively slanted towards Barack Obama; it's a fact, deal with it.