69.9 Million Watched Biden And Palin’s V.P Debate
On Tuesday night, 69.9 million viewers tuned in to watch the sole vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
The Biden-Palin matchup set a new V.P. debate TV audience record, beating the previous high of 56.7 million viewers set by the debate between Rep. Geraldine Ferraro and then-V.P. George H.W. Bush in 1984*.
Biden and Palin’s debate also surpassed the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, which drew an audience of 52.4 million last Friday night.
During the last presidential election in 2004, the vice presidential debate between V.P. Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards drew 43.6 million viewers.
Coverage of the Biden-Palin debate was carried live on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Telefutura, Telemundo, BBC-America, CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC from approximately 9pm to 10:30pm EST Thursday night.
*The universe of potential TV viewers has grown significantly since 1984.
View the full media alert.
Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings by Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Ad Age, and Mediaweek.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:07 pm
[...] Debate Breaks Records: Nielsen Report Posted on October 3, 2008 by sooshisoo 69.9 Million Watched Biden And Palin’s V.P Debate On Tuesday night, 69.9 million viewers tuned in to watch the sole vice presidential debate between [...]
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:28 pm
I realize that Nielsen only monitors TV, but because you can also get streaming video and radio over the Internet, the Nielsen numbers don’t tell the whole story.
And there were lots of us, judging by how many servers crash during the debates.
Fortunately, Web hits are more easily counted than eyeballs on the TV, so maybe someone can aggregate the TV with the Internet and get the real numbers.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
[...] half of households with a television watched the VP debate across the broadcast networks and cable. They not only beat their running mates, [...]
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
There is one reason and one reason only that this debate broke the records. Her name is Sarah Palin.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:48 am
also cspan not counted.
October 4th, 2008 at 4:17 am
[...] Nielsen reports just under 70 million actually. [...]
October 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I don’t see CSPAN on the list. I watched on CSPAN.
October 4th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
What have you got against PBS?
October 4th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
[...] So, a day and a half after the Debate to End all Debates, the group consensus (and I do mean group; according to Nielsen, the debate is the most-watched VP debate in history, surpassing the Ferraro-Bush debate in [...]
October 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
[...] Really? Fifteen to 13 is “significant”? Unfortunately, a significant margin of the 70 million people who tuned into the debate did so on CNN and were forced to watch this [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 7:38 am
[...] That’s up 11 million from the first McCain-Obama debate, but still didn’t beat out the 69.9 million number set by the Palin-Biden [...]
October 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
[...] to energize her own base a bit? Yeah. But I doubt she picked up any new votes. Did you notice neilson’s ratings for the VP debates. I don’t think all those people showed up to check out a recycled Biden. Her numbers & base [...]