52.7 million viewers tuned in for President Bush’s speech on the U.S. economic crisis, which aired live Wednesday night from approximately 9:00pm to 9:15pm EST on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC.

 
Rating
Average Audience
Number

All Households
 33.2
 38,031,000

Persons 2+
 18.2
 52,653,000

Source: The Nielsen Company (September 24, 2008)

Note: Sum of audience estimates for ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC.

ABC, CBS, and NBC aired almost three times more TV advertising during the Democratic National Convention than during the Republican National Convention, Nielsen Monitor-Plus reported Friday.
The three networks aired more than 36 minutes of commercials, including promotional announcements and public service announcements, during the DNC — compared with just 13 minutes of commercials during the GOP convention, according to Nielsen.
Of the three networks, CBS aired the most advertising during both conventions.

Network
# of Commercial Minutes
Democratic Convention
(mm:ss)
# of Commercial Minutes
Republican Convention
(mm:ss)

ABC
9:36
4:48

CBS
15:48
5:30

NBC
11:00
2:54

Total
36:24
13:12

Source: The Nielsen Company (August 25 – 28, 2008 and September 2 …

In August, videos at JohnMcCain.com attracted more female than male viewers for the first time, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
Women accounted for 58% of all unique video viewers on John McCain’s website last month — up from July and June, when they made up 48% and 37% of unique video viewers on the site.
The increase in women video viewers at JohnMcCain.com came during the same month that McCain selected Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.
Barack Obama’s website drew consistently large percentages of women video viewers during the summer months, …

Voters not yet committed to either candidate were 12% more engaged by TV coverage of the GOP convention than the Democratic convention, according to an analysis released Monday by Nielsen IAG.
“Engagement” refers to the amount of attention paid to a television program by the average viewer.  Nielsen measures TV engagement by questioning a representative panel of viewers about their recall of specific telecasts’ content.
John McCain’s acceptance speech on September 4 drew the most attentive audience of uncommitted viewers, Nielsen reported.  Telecasts of Barack Obama’s and Sarah Palin’s acceptance speeches on …

It’s one of the few points not up for debate this election season: TV coverage of the typically uneventful U.S. political conventions drew record-breaking audiences. 
Nearly two-thirds of all U.S. households (64.5%) — 120.1 million people age two or older — watched at least one of the 2008 political conventions, according to a new analysis released Thursday by Nielsen. 
Viewership levels for the Democratic and Republican conventions were essentially even, with about half of all U.S. households watching each.  Overall, 15% of all homes tuned in to the Republican National Convention only, while 15.7% …

Vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin may be in the headlines, but the chatter in the blogosphere remains focused on the presidential candidates, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, according to Nielsen Online.
Online Buzz
An analysis by Nielsen of the online discussions around more than 30 speakers at the Democratic and Republican conventions showed Obama leading McCain, followed by Palin and Sen. Hillary Clinton.  Vice-presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Biden, rounded out the top five most buzzworthy politicians.

Rank
Speaker
Index

1
Barack Obama
100

2
John McCain
97

3
Sarah Palin
80

4
Hillary Clinton
33

5
Joe Biden
26

6
George W. Bush
12

7
Michelle Obama
12

8
Bill Clinton
11

9
Cindy McCain
5

10
Ted Kennedy
5

11
Nancy Pelosi
4

12
Mitt Romney
4

13
Al Gore
4

14
Joe Lieberman
4

15
Rudy Giuliani
3

16
Fred Thompson
3

17
Mike …

On Thursday night, John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention bested Barack Obama’s record-breaking viewership numbers from last week by 500,000 viewers.
More than 38.9 million people tuned in to coverage of the final night of the GOP convention.  In comparison, Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention drew 38.4 million viewers.
For the third night in a row, more women (19.2 million) than men (17.9 million) watched the RNC coverage.  Still, McCain’s speech drew significantly more men than Obama’s acceptance speech (16.2 million).  In contrast, Obama drew more women (19.9 …

For their respective nomination speeches at the conventions, Senator Barack Obama drew 38.3 million TV viewers compared to 37.2 million for Governor Sarah Palin. Tracking buzz via Nielsen Online the day after each speech, Obama again showed an edge with mentions in nearly 3.5% of all blog posts on August 29, compared to Palin’s peak of just north of 2.5% of all posts the day after her highly anticipated debut on the national stage. As reported previously, Palin’s announcement buzz overshadowed that of her rival Joe Biden as well as …

More than 37.2 million people tuned in for coverage of the third night of the 2008 Republican National Convention, which featured Sarah Palin’s much anticipated national debut. 
Wednesday night’s RNC broadcasts attracted just a 1.1 million fewer viewers than Barack Obama’s record-breaking speech on day four of the Democratic convention. 
Coverage of day three of the GOP convention drew a large female audience (19.5 million) — 5.2 million more women than tuned in for day two of the Democratic convention, when Hillary Clinton addressed the delegates, and 6.9 million more women than …

More than 21.5 million people watched the second night of the 2008 Republican National Convention — a 17% decrease from the 26 million viewers who tuned in last week for day two of the Democratic National Convention.
Tuesday night’s speeches by Former Senator Fred Thompson and Senator Joe Lieberman drew many more women (11.2 million) than men (9.5 million), as was also the case on day two of the Democratic convention, when Hillary Clinton delivered her endorsement of Barack Obama.
So far, coverage of the GOP convention has not drawn the large numbers …