Democratic Convention Ratings Fall From 2004
By
robert108
on August 27, 2008 at 05:26 am
By Michele Greppi and Andrew Krukowski
Dem sales are down. Maybe they're going into a recession.
The first night of the Democratic National Convention, featuring an address by Michelle Obama, drew fewer broadcast television viewers than the event four years ago, when former President Bill Clinton kicked things off.
ABC, CBS and NBC brought in 12.1 million viewers in the 10 p.m. hour, down one million from 2004, according to preliminary, fast-national data from Nielsen Media Research. NBC scored the largest audience.
Later in the day, when final broadcast and cable ratings came in, it became clear that the cable news networks’ blanket coverage pushed audiences much higher.
Only ABC News’s convention special gained over its entertainment lead-in, picking up 1.6 million viewers following “Samantha Who?” to average 3.78 million viewers for the hour anchored by Charles Gibson, George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer.
ABC finished second in the head-to-head competition to NBC News’s hour anchored by Brian Williams, which averaged 4.85 million viewers, down 2.6 million from the lead-in supplied by “America’s Toughest Jobs.”
In third place was the CBS News Hour anchored by Katie Couric, Bob Schieffer and Jeff Greenfield, which averaged 3.52 million viewers, down 3 million viewers from “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”
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Dem sales are down. Maybe they're going into a recession.
