Convention viewership
August 26, 2008 at 5:47 pm | In Uncategorized | 7 CommentsAccording to the NYTimes, viewership of Night 1 of the Dem’s Convention was up– from 18 million in ‘04 to about 24 million in ‘08. Good news– the more people that saw Michelle Obama and her children, the better imho. Listening to her speech, watching her bio video about her working class roots, and seeing her family members, i had a “good, god, could this country really be so dumb as to NOT elect this family over McCain” moment– I’m sure I’ll have many many more. Especially after McC picks Romney.
Some interesting numbers:
The broadcast networks NBC, ABC and CBS attracted an audience of 12 million, with NBC leading the pack with 4.7 million viewers. (”Deal or No Deal,” at 8 p.m. on NBC, averaged 11 million viewers.) In another sign of the increasing popularity of cable channels for news coverage, CNN attracted more viewers — 4.2 million — than ABC or CBS for the hour. ABC drew 4.17 million and CBS averaged 3.46 million at the same hour.
On cable news, the Fox News Channel had an average of 2.92 million viewers for the hour, while MSNBC averaged 2.1 million. CNN, usually the second place cable network behind Fox News, was also top-rated during the Democratic convention in 2004.
The combined audience was a few million shy of NBC’s prime time average during the Olympics this month.
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Adding to the viewership discussion, I noticed that Michelle’s speech is one of the top viewed and top rated videos on YouTube tonight. As of 6:00 pm (less than 24 hours after her speech), the video has been viewed more than 166,000 times. I’ll be sure to compare those numbers with Cindy’s in a week.
Comment by Peter — August 26, 2008 #
This is a bit of a tangent, but I didn’t want to make a whole post about it. Have you seen the nightly themes of the GOP convention?
1- Serivce (ok, fine)
2- Reform (wha? reform Bush’s agenda?)
3- Peace (WHA?)
4- Prosperity
You know, I could see something like “keeping our nation safe”, but “Peace”??? who really believes peace is a gop theme? really?
Comment by Troy — August 26, 2008 #
The numbers for Night 2 are up 16% from Night 1 to almost 26 million. It’s difficult to compare to 2004’s night 2, because the networks didn’t carry that night at all– just PBS and cable (for 5.9 million viewers in 2004)
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/category/politics/
For Peter: I see that tonite (wed), on the YouTube, Michelle Obama was the #3 video of the day- 448,158 total views (though there are more than one copies), and Hillary was #15 for the day. I’m sure she will move up.
Comment by Troy — August 27, 2008 #
Update:
As of 9:30 on 8/27/08 Michelle’s speech is the #3 most watched video on YouTube today with just over a half million total views. Hillary’s speech is at #15 with about 68,000 views. I am not sure what this little anecdotal poll will tell you but I will keep reporting it.
Comment by Peter — August 27, 2008 #
Well, what I found myself thinking was, now she has a job that pays about 200K per year. So I acknowledge what she had to overcome to realize her goals. But she stopped being a working class hero about 160K-annually ago, and I’m not hearing a lot of speeches about that. And she’s not running for anything. If we’re serious about gender equality the spouse of the candidate should never even enter into the political equation–why are we signing on to this patriarchal view? If Michelle Obama was the candiate, I’d be interested in Michelle Obama. But she’s not, and I’m not.
Comment by Rob Lowe — August 27, 2008 #
We sign on to this patriarchal view because people tear up when political families tell their “stories.”
Remember, we’re not electing a prime minister. We’re electing a king. He must, in some mysterious way, embody us. And that means his wife must remind us of someone we know, or at least, someone we admire. Because we are a Democracy.
God bless America.
Comment by Dan — August 28, 2008 #
Yeah, well, god bless everything and everyone in sight, apparently, and not just once, but over and over and over.
I can’t concur with the notion of an electoral monarchy. Reverence of that type has to be far more universal than is true in the US for it to be applicable. I wouldn’t dispute that the some of the same instincts and habits are in play. But I remain indifferent to, and unable to comprehend the interests others may have in, the spouses or relatives of politicians who are not themselves holders of office or offenders against the law. Will Chelsea Clinton, for example, never go away?
Comment by Rob Lowe — August 29, 2008 #