The combined overall household rating for Senator Barack Obama’s Wednesday night infomercial, in the top 56 local television markets where Nielsen maintains electronic TV meters, was 21.7.
Obama’s simulcast is the first to be aired by a presidential candidate since Ross Perot ran a political telecast on the eve of Election Day in 1996. That program was watched by 16.8% of all households nationwide.
Ross Perot also ran a series of 15 political telecasts during the 1992 presidential election.
In comparison, the final debate between the two presidential candidates received a 38.3 household rating in the top 56 local TV markets. The candidates’ first debate on September 26 received a 34.7 household rating in the top 55 markets; their second debate, on October 7, received a 42.0 household rating in those markets.
Among the top 56 local metered markets, the Baltimore market had the largest TV audience, with a household rating of 31.3, while the Portland market had the lowest household rating: 14.2.
One rating point equals 1% of the total TV households in a given market.
| Rank (by H.H. rating) |
Market | Market Rank (by population size) |
Household Rating (% of U.S. households that watched debate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baltimore | 26 | 31.3 |
| 2 | Philadelphia | 4 | 29.0 |
| 3 | West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce | 38 | 28.0 |
| 4 | Nashville | 29 | 27.3 |
| 5 | Greensboro-H.Point-W.Salem | 46 | 27.2 |
| 6 | St. Louis | 21 | 27.1 |
| 7 | Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) | 9 | 26.8 |
| 8 | New York | 1 | 26.2 |
| 9 | Boston (Manchester) | 7 | 25.7 |
| 10 | Hartford & New Haven | 30 | 25.1 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company (October 29, 2008). | |||
View ratings for Nielsen’s 56 top local metered markets.
Obama’s infomercial aired live on CBS, NBC, FOX, UNIVISION, MSNBC, and NY1 Wednesday night. This data does not include ratings from BET, which aired the infomercial during different time periods.
National ratings for the infomercial will be available from Nielsen Thursday afternoon.
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I did not watch Obama’s infomercial,the fact that he paid so much money to have it aired only proves to me that he is trying to buy the Presidency. He has raised a record number of campaign funds and I would like to know who is giving him the money? Seems to me that he will have a lot of favors to pay back! More government corruption……Stay tuned!
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I’ll tell you who paid for it Faye. The American people. It’s funny because The Republicans have for so long been funded by large corperations and corrupt backroom deals. And finally someone who rejected the lobbyists and special interests and had the American people who cared about him contribute and you say he’s corrupt now. It’s hilarious.
Republicans do not live in reality. It’s make believe. Every rational person knows the corrupt big corp types back the Republican and pay for the Republican candidates. But much like MANY Republicans are endorsing Barack Obama, many corporations are now seeing that Obama is BETTER for their business because if you have NO ONE TO PURCHASE YOUR PRODUCT, then your business fails. Not much to worry about paying 3% more in taxes if everyone else is too poor to buy anything. That’s why business’ have been switching their support away from McCain. Because the Bush policies failed.
Obama’s money comes from small contributions donated mainly through the internet by regular people who choose to donate. If he chooses to spend it on an infomercial then he’s spending it on behalf of his supporters. It has therefore nothing to do with a corrupt government or ‘buying the election’.
I gave this money. My husband gave this money. My neighbors and friends gave this money. Millions of us who want change and are desperate for people to know that the millions given to the Republican party have been given to McCain above and beyond the 84 million. He wanted the financial advantage and didn’t get it because of ordinary folks like us!!!!!
Don’t comment on what you don’t know! The only favor he has to pay back is to get elected!
I suspect a lot of Portland watched it on youtube prior to its airing; goodness knows we’re very probama.
To Faye:
I can answer your question about who is giving Obama money. It’s people like me–a modestly paid librarian, who never gave more than $25 to a politician before 2008, but who has given almost $200 to Obama because she sees someone with wonderful judgment, high intelligence, concern about ALL Americans (and not just the wealthy top 2%), among numerous other admirable traits. In short, she sees someone that will make an outstanding president. There’s millions of us, thank goodness. And the only thing Obama “owes” me is to reverse 8 years of Bush-Cheney mismanagement, their utter disregard for civil liberties, and their HORRENDOUS judicial appointments, so that this country gets back on track again.
FAYE – Millions of Americans have contributed to Obama’s campaign. The average contribution is $86.
Obama WILL have to pay back the favor to all those small donors, by governing as wisely and effectively as he can.
Just because nobody likes your creepy, erratic candidate doesn’t give you the right to accuse others of corruption. Shame on you.
Obama is buying the Presidency, not to say that John McCain wouldn’t do it if he could, but any candidate who would buy his way into the Presidency is corrupting the process. I refuse to listen to an infomercial and would have respected him a lot more if he left himself open to some questions.
The extensive voter fraud going on is a serious concern as well. More than a dozen counties in Mo., a battleground state, have more voters registered than there are eligible voters living. That’s just one of many examples. The latest from ACORN is the ACORN worker who supports Obama and is testifying that money from VOTE NOW, the org. Obama contributed to recently used the Obama campaign top donor lists. She said she is testifying because she is an American and felt it was wrong.
Obama has voted with Pelosi and Reid 97% of the time and, without a record of change or accomplishment, I am somewhat skeptical that we are going to get the change we’re looking for.
Pretty easy to raise money through tons of fraudulent donations by taking off the security tools that verify credit cards. That is an intentional act that allows anyone to donate as many times as they want, with as many names as addresses they want using the same credit card.
Not only that Obama’s website can be pinged by credit card thieves to find working credit card numbers. Who can then make donations to the Obama campaign using your stolen money. Don’t laugh because there are hundreds if not thousands of non-Obama supporters who suddenly look at their credit card statement and see they are maxed out in donations to his campaign.
Look it up on the web you kool-aid drinking Obama fans. He is fraud not only with his campaign but with his money as well.
Obama didn’t need to make a closing argument.
The argument has been the same the whole time, which is:
a) I’m going to take the other guy’s money and give it to you
b) I’m going to surrender to thugs who want to destroy America because that will make them like us and leave us alone
c) I’m going to make government your nanny, so you don’t have to worry about anything
What does it say about a candidate who must spend so much money and still not securely seal the deal? Only in America, would a segment of society believe that money equals the right to govern a nation.
Money means nothing especially when laws of international donations are broken, when amounts under $200 are not documented online as required and when duplicate contributions under the same card number, but multiple identities are ignored.
No good will come to such manipulation. God sees all.
Mark, Marie, Angela, Sara and Richard — yes, you gave your money — to a very outstanding motivational speaker. That’s all he is. He has also gotten the highest donations from these sectors: Banking, Trial Attorneys, Pharmecuetical companies, etc… Individuals are not his only contributors, but they have given a lot to him. I’m sure he will be elected, but you will not see the “change” you are looking for. He’s just another politician with a gift of public speaking. He’s told everyone what they want to hear, but his record shows years of not producing any results. A president can only move the policy a few steps in either direction. The House/Senate control where America goes — and the Pelosi/Reid team do not seem to share Obama’s views. Sip your cool-aide slowly as you are in for a big let down when the cup proves empty.
[...] three million dollars, was unprecedented in the realm of campaign advertising, and was watched by 21.7% of the 56 top TV markets. It didn’t bump the World [...]
notafool
a) You can’t cut taxes everywhere and be fiscally responsible.
McCain wants to give everybody a tax cut, freeze government spending, and keep fighting in iraq… how does this add up?
I’m an indepdent. I used to love mccain, but I can’t figure out why he voted for all those bush budgets.
b) I’m sure al queda is loving it that we’re spending $100billion a month to go after them in iraq. If they bankrupt us, they win. The longer they keep us fighting in iraq, the more likely this is.
c) Health care costs are crazy, McCain’s $5k tax credit is interesting but most families I know pay $1,000 a month in premiums… so $5k, how does this line up?
Mccain is going to tax your benefits which has never happened before. So if your employer is paying the $1,000 month health care premium, mccain is going to tax this like income. So your choice will be to pay taxes on an extra $12,000 a year and getting nothing additional for it… OR you can opt out of the employer benefits… and get a $5,000 credit??
again… I don’t get it. ditto on his choice of palin. She’s interesting but he made it more difficult for me to vote for him.
Will the real republican leadership please stand up? Everybody talking about bill ayers and socialism can sit down.
if obama can stay to the middle like he’s been doing in his presidential campaign, he will be a great president.
Maureen, get the facts straight. It’s voter *registration* fraud, not voter fraud. When a rogue ACORN worker fills out a form for Mickey Mouse, that doesn’t mean that Mickey Mouse is going to come to the polls and actually vote. These people who committed registration fraud will not be affecting the final outcome of the election whatsoever. Do you really think that Mickey Mouse is going to show up to vote? Give me a break.
And for all your contempt for the work that ACORN has done, you should know that John McCain was the keynote speaker at an ACORN event a few years ago. He was a distinguished invitee, and he proudly showed up and posed in many pictures at that event. Before you slinging right wing FOXNEWS talking points around, you should at least know the facts.
[...] primetime TV ad was seen in 21.7% of households in the top 56 local media markets, according to Nielsen. More than 31% of households in Baltimore watched the telecast, the highest percentage for any [...]
This is a real Republican standing up here. This is what made me a Republican: The responsibility of government is to protect me. Everything else is up to me.
Mike – While liberals and conservatives might not agree on a definition of voter fraud for the purposes of this election, it has historically included false registrations. Many of the registrations were not as ridiculous as Mickey Mouse. I think it needs to be taken seriously. The real joke is to ignore it.
John McCain answered the question of the ACORN event. ACORN is supposed to be non-partisan – they surely aren’t that. John McCain didn’t tell the ACORN people at an event that he would form his governement around them and that they’d be advisors as Barack Obama did.
I’m not a right wing Fox news person. Don’t demonize them on my account. All the stations seem biased these days. I do know my facts. You sound so angry.
[...] combined overall household rating for Senator Barack Obama’s Wednesday night infomercial, in the top 56 local television markets where Nielsen maintains electronic TV meters, was [...]
In response to Maureen,
Sometimes, stories can go out of control before all the facts are in place. Members of ACORN committed voter registration fraud by writing down false names in their lists of registrants. The vast majority of these members did this because they needed to hit a quota (in fact, some of them were being paid to hit a certain quota, so people just got lazy and/or greedy and just wrote down stuff like John Doe and Mickey Mouse). There is no political conspiracy; this is an example of a bad system which motivates individual to make false registrations in order to hit a quota. Unfortunately for the Democrats, ACORN happens to do most of their work in urban areas, which historically vote Democrat.
However, there is a strict, legal difference between voter fraud and voter registration fraud. Voter registration fraud is registering ineligible (or non-existent people)to vote. Voter fraud is when said ineligible or non-existent person goes to the polls to vote. So, it’s reasonable to assume that any imaginary person, no matter how plausible his/her name sounds, is not going to show up to vote. Ineligible voters, in the same respect, will simply be screened out of the process by poll officials on election day or any early election day. The poll officials will see that the ineligible voter does not have the proper qualifications, so he/she will be turned away.
In short, the actions by members of ACORN, though fraudulent , are certainly not going to lead to anything close to voter fraud. Remember that many people who register to vote don’t even bother to show up, so voter registration is not a contract or a fixed agreement of any kind.
Maureen: You said “I refuse to listen to an infomercial and would have respected him a lot more if he left himself open to some questions.” Which he did earlier the same evening, talking to Charlie Gibson on ABC News. Gibson, who was criticized by some for questioning Palin too hard, asked Obama serious questions too. “Taxing the wealthy to benefit lower- and middle-income people. Isn’t that a kind of classic old-time class warfare?”
ACORN is indeed non-partisan, from a political standpoint. They do have a distinctly liberal agenda and point of view, which often puts them on the side of Democrats and rarely on the side of Republicans, but that’s different from political partisanship. They spend most of their time pushing local governments toward the positions they advocate, which Democratic administrations don’t enjoy any more than Republican ones do.
[...] Among the top 56 local metered markets, Nielsen says the Baltimore market had the largest TV audience for the ad while the Portland market had the lowest. [...]
[...] October 30th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief In terms of political T.V. — particularly the often boring form of political informercials — Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s 30 minute informercial last night was a big hit: it got a rating of 21.7 percent in top markets. [...]
[...] combined overall household rating for Senator Barack Obama’s Wednesday night infomercial, in the top 56 local television markets where Nielsen maintains electronic TV meters, was [...]
Voting fraud has been perpetrated by ACORN and ACORN is far from bipartisan. I don’t want them getting my taxes but the government has decided they will get them. It’s also ridiculous that ACORN only requires a credit score of 300 and a salary of $26000 before they push some bank into giving a family a mortgage. Don’t take my word for it. Look at the ACORN site.
ACORN isn’t the only problem in connection with voting incongruities of course. I personally don’t appreciate homeless people using park benches as addresses as I believe that is rife for corruption.
If the government cannot even run an election properly, how are they going to run healthcare, banks, real estate, etc? Not well, I’m sure.
[...] of Arizona the great nation of Panama with his historical thirty minute infomercial according to Nielsen Wire (unless I misread something there — it IS possible due to my nearsightedness I’ll [...]
People who think ACORN is bipartisan haven’t heard Chairperson Bertha’s political ad yet, in which she unabashedly supports Barack. People using benches as addresses leave open great possibilities for fraud. Students registering in a state they don’t live in for the purposes of voting are engaging in fraud. A Secretary of State in Ohio will not check the ballots and will not have poll watchers. More people have actually voted than were eligible in prior elections. Our system is becoming corrupted. Everyone should be concerned.
When Barack gave his infomercial and his interviews, I would have liked to have heard honest answers to questions about ACORN and his scurrilous associates. I would like to know exactly what his community organizing role involved since it is part of his resume. I would like to know why he told ACORN he was going to make them advisors to his administration. I would like to know more specifics about his support of Israel. I would like to know what he means specifically by redistribution of wealth through the legislature or the courts. Where is he going to get all the money needed for 3+ trillion dollars worth of new programs. Why does he think taxing investors will help the stock market? Why is he giving tax credits to people who didn’t pay taxes? He will get us out of Iraq but we’re going full steam into Afghanistan? Why did he ban a Fla. station for asking questions he didn’t like and can we expect more of that?
I am not criticizing him, I want answers. I don’t need to hear an infomercial or innocuous questions by Charlie Gibson. Who is the real Obama and what is he really going to do? No infomercial is going to provide the information I would need to vote for him.
[...] primetime TV ad was seen in 21.7% of households in the top 56 local media markets, according to Nielsen. By comparison, Between 34.7% and 42.0% of households watched the three debates between Obama and [...]
[...] Barack Obama’s infomercial fell far short. Despite its multiple platforms, it could only garner 21.7% of the households in the US. The debates drew far more: (more hot [...]
[...] named ‘Marie’ on the Nielsen website wrote the following: “Obama’s money comes from small contributions donated mainly through [...]
[...] Nielsen announces that TV ratings for Barack Obama’s multi-network blanket infomercial only slightly beats out the mind-numbing pie-chart party broadcast by billionaire circus sideshow Ross Perot on Election Eve in 1996. Perot went on to win slightly over 8% of the vote. [...]
[...] Nielsen announces that TV ratings for Barack Obama’s multi-network blanket infomercial only slightly beats out the mind-numbing pie-chart party broadcast by billionaire circus sideshow Ross Perot on Election Eve in 1996. Perot went on to win slightly over 8% of the vote. [...]
[...] Among the top 56 local metered markets, Nielsen says the Baltimore market had the largest TV audience for the ad while the Portland market had the lowest. [...]
[...] How did BO do in the ratings last night? According to Nielsen, he got about 21.7 % of households in top markets. While 21.7 % is not terribly impressive, [...]
[...] Barack Obama’s infomercial fell far short. Despite its multiple platforms, it could only garner 21.7% of the households in the US. The debates drew far more: (More on the Obama [...]
[...] Obama’s infomercial fell far short. Despite its multiple platforms, it could only garner 21.7% of the households in the [...]
[...] to Neilson Ratings, the Obama infomerical got a 21.7 share. Meanwhile, the first US Presidential debate got 34.7; the [...]
[...] effect the Obamathon had on voters, but a good chunk of them actually watched it, which is a start. Nielsen stated that roughly 21.7% of households nationwide, a somewhat smaller audience than what tuned in [...]
[...] p.m. – Is anyone else as unimpressed by the audience Obama pulled in his last infomercial? Perot got 17% in his last one in 1996 and got 6% of the vote. [...]
I don’t even know,fellow!) continued to write in the same vein, it is interesting people!
[...] But less than 22% of households had their TVs tuned in to the infomercial for Democrat Barack Obama on Wednesday, Nielsen reported. [...]
[...] 21.7% Of Households In Top Local TV Markets Watched Obama Infomercial [...]
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