McCain Tops Obama’s Record-Breaking Ratings
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 million) than McCain.
White viewers flocked to their TV’s for McCain’s speech (32.2 million vs. 27 million for Obama). But among African Americans, the reverse was true: 7.5 million African Americans watched Obama’s speech last week, while just 3.1 million tuned in for McCain’s speech.
| Rating | Number | |
|---|---|---|
| All Households | 24.6 | 28,298,000 |
| Persons 2+ | 13.4 | 38,933,000 |
| Women 18+ | 16.5 | 19,193,000 |
| Men 18+ | 16.6 | 17,933,000 |
| Persons 12-17 | 3.4 | 836,000 |
| Persons 18-34 | 9.0 | 6,108,000 |
| Persons 18-49 | 11.5 | 15,218,000 |
| Persons 55+ | 25.2 | 17,977,000 |
| African American Persons 2+ * | 8.3 | 3,063,000 |
| Hispanic Persons 2+ * | 9.9 | 4,297,000 |
| White Persons 2+ * | 15.0 | 32,210,000 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company (September 4, 2008) | ||
| Figures are the sum of the networks during the common hour of coverage. Included networks are ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Telemundo, and Univision. | ||
| *Ratings for African American, Hispanic, and White viewers show the percent of African American, Hispanic, and White persons age two and older in TV homes watching the convention coverage. | ||
The TV audience for day four of the GOP convention was larger (+41%) than the audience for the same night during the 2004 convention, which drew 27.5 million viewers.
On Thursday, September 4, 2008, convention coverage varied by network, with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Telemundo, and Univision airing live coverage from approximately 10pm to 11:15pm EST.
Note: Nielsen’s new universe estimates for the 2008-09 television season took effect on September 1, 2008, reflecting a 1.3% increase in TV households and viewers aged two or older. As a result, each rating point represents more households and persons. Read about the new totals.
View the full media alert.
Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Multichannel News, Ad Age, and on MarketWatch.com.
Good. The more people who saw that trainwreck of a speech that McCain gave, the better it is for the Democrats.
[...] a summary of its research, Neilsen [...]
The Democratic National Convention took place during one of summer’s peak vacation weeks, while the RNC took place after Labor Day (and during the school year). So it shouldn’t be surprising that McCain’s speech edged out Obama’s.
What I’d really like to know is how many viewers watched the entire McCain speech (or were still awake by its end).
The media’s personal attacks on Palin and her family backfired big time. Will tne NY Times crowd never learn? Americans don’t like ugly.
trianwreck? Guess Ed’s not reading the polls to much… McCain has all ready killed Obama’s bounce from the Democratic Convention
Ed Harrison is the quintessential liberal whiner. They were all for giving legitimacy to Neilsen Ratings when Obama was reported to have great viewership. McCain beats his numbers and gave the speech he needed to in order to energize the Conservative base, and the liberals are crying foul. The only trainwreck around here is the candidacy of Obama.
This is not a fair assessment. The McCain show was certainly shown on more channels than Obama in my area including including independent and non-English stations. Only the major networks, except FOX, showed Obama speak last Friday.
That may be true in your area, Tweety, but I don’t think it’s true in all markets. I know that Obama was shown on 10 networks. I don’t know how many showed McCain, but only six covered Palin.
My question is how the viewership breaks down over time between the two speeches. In other words, how many people finished watching both speeches as compared to how many started?
Plus, I can imagine there were at least a few dozen TV sets in Washington DC and New York watching the first NFL game of the season between the Redskins and the NFL Champion Giants.
I’m sure it will be a close election, but I will be proud to give my vote to John McCain. I was touched by the story of his life and his commitment toservice and to bi-partisanship. I really do believe he wants to get the corruption out of Washington no matter if the corruption is a Democrat or a Republican. American’s want a government that works, not one that is wasteful.
I love how the libs say “It’s good that Dems watched so we can make sure we’ll win”. Of course they would have said “see, we even beat McCain on the numbers of viewers” if he hadn’t. The party’s over Dems.
I’d be willing to bet that Obama’s viewing audience was primarily Independents and Democrats. I meant, what Republican wants to watch Obama? I’d bet McCain’s were Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Democrats were watching to make sure McCain didn’t make a major goof.
This is great news for McCain. Especially when you combine it with all the people who tuned in for Palin on Wednesday night.
http://thenewconservatives.blogspot.com/
[...] night drew 500,000 more viewers than Barack Obama’s record-setting speech a week earlier, Nielsen Media Research reports. More than 38.9 million watched McCain accept the Republican nomination for president on eight [...]
These numbers must be from a statistical sample. Why do you not publish enough statistical information (sample size, confidence intervals, etc.) that we can evaluate the quality of your numbers?
[...] The Nielsen Company reports that McCain’s speech drew 38.9 million viewers, beating-out Democrat Barack Obama’s spectacle at Invesco Field in Denver last Thursday by more than a half-million people. [...]
Dr. Man - you are right - it is easy to interpret these things either way. Saying the party’s over though is a bit odd, however, the republicans have been the party in power for a while now, the question is if we want the party to continue or not.
No, McCain’s and Palin’s were in fewer markets. You are not being honest when you say that or you are just repeating the words of the satanic messiah.
Marvin,
Most of his campaign has been run by lobbyists.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101131_pf.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/4900.html
Do you think they would purposely destroy their livelihoods?
Plus they are rallying to raise money for him…
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251
Something happened to McCain between the 2000 and 2008 elections. He has pretty much handed his reputation and integrity over to Carl Rove’s disciples for a shot at the presidency. He’s even hired the firms that orchestrated the Bush smears against him in the 2000 race.
He’s not the McCain I could vote for anymore.
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I don’t think the neilsen ratings are an accurate representation of voter’s plans. I know of a LOT of democrats and independents who tuned in to watch McCain’s *yawn* speech, just to see if he could motivate and move them. I know of a LOT of democrats and independents who wanted to find out more about Palin. I know a lot of people who watched Obama because they WANTED to and watched McCain because they felt obligated.
Any woman who plans to vote McCain/Palin simply because there are finally ovaries on the ticket and not because they have fully researched the candidates’ stances on the issues, needs to think twice and do some homework.
: ) P
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So, this is actually proves my point:
John McCain is a bigger celebrity than Barack Obama.
Obama Bounce still intact - his lead went from 48-46 to 49-46 in Rasmussen (today), and from 45-44 (preconvention) 48-44 (today) in Gallup. The ONLY poll that shows it even is CBS, at 42-42. Several other national polls show Obama over 50%. State polls in Iowa and Minnesota, which were very close 2 weeks ago, have Obama up by double digits as of yesterday. Electorally, Obama would have more than 300 EVs if the election were held today, based on polls that undercount two of his most enthusiastic constituencies — blacks and young people. There is no poll that has yet been taken which shows McCain over 45% nationally.
If I were a betting man, I would have Obama winning 55-45% in November, worst case.
Umm, title is a little misleading since all channels that covered the conventions aren’t included. I watched Obama on PBS, for example, but PBS stations aren’t in the Nielsen ratings. Neither is CSPAN, and a lot of people watched those stations to avoid the network talking heads, who did a terrible job by talking over earlier presenters that some of us wanted to see.
I don’t think these ratings have any bearing on which candidate Americans are more interested in or likely to vote for!
And as someone else mentioned, one of the major networks was actually showing a football game during McCain’s speech, so are those viewers counted?
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Tom Duff-
Although we don’t go into such statistical depth on our blog, detailed tables on standard error, etc. are available to our clients.
-Nielsen Communications
Lori P-
You are correct in noting that PBS and C-SPAN are not included in Nielsen’s ratings for the final night of the Republican National Convention.
Just as PBS does not distribute programs in the same way that broadcast networks do, Nielsen does not provide PBS with ratings in the same way. Typically, PBS identifies those programs for which it wants national audience estimates and provides Nielsen with a line-up of stations around the country that air that program along with days and dates the shows air. Nielsen then verifies that the stations carried the show using electronic verification and produces audience estimates. This is a more time-consuming method than is used with commercial broadcast and cable networks — and is only done for those national programs that PBS selects. As such, Nielsen did not include PBS audiences in its overall measurement of convention TV viewership.
C-SPAN is not included because Nielsen does not measure and report C-SPANs’ audiences. Many cable networks choose not to have Nielsen measurement for a variety of reasons specific to the network. For example, the home shopping networks also do not subscribe to Nielsen.
In answer to your final question — the NFL’s kick-off game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins ended before Senator McCain’s acceptance speech began.
-Nielsen Communications
Durant Imboden-
In theory, Nielsen’s historical TV audience data could confirm or debunk your thesis. Unfortunately that would require extensive research into the average numbers of people and households watching TV before and after Labor Day – and that’s way beyond the scope of this blog!
Please also note that Nielsen’s universe estimate changed as of September 1, making the U.S. TV audience as a whole a “larger sandbox,” as the Washington Post called it.
-Nielsen Communications
Tweety-
Nielsen’s audience estimate is for a national audience that credits viewing to all the national originators for which Nielsen reports audiences. Our production process takes into account those local markets where network programs might be pre-empted. Also, some of the cable networks included in the audience estimate might not be available in all local markets, but that is another part of the process that Nielsen tracks when producing audience estimates.
-Nielsen Communications
Brad-
That’s a good question — one Nielsen can definitely answer, using half-hour, quarter-hour,or even minute-by-minute viewership of both candidates’ speeches. Unfortunately, that’s beyond the scope of this blog — at least for now!
-Nielsen Communications
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