Comments on: UPDATED: Obama Inaugural Events Viewed By 30.1% In Top Markets

By: Humberto

Humberto — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:25:27 +0000

Hi. Outstanding job. This is a great article. Thanks!

By: anna

anna — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:34:44 +0000

boston, everyone was at work.. we all watched either on TV’s or the internet. It’s not like this was at 7pm at night… people have to make money.

By: xtina

xtina — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:36:58 +0000

Does this account for the mass group viewings? A lot of people went to convention centers, churches, lodges, etc. to view with large groups…so the viewing percentage is still a bit deceiving.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:52:57 +0000

Looks pretty simply explained to me. Look at the Bottom 10. The event took place at 9 a.m. in San Diego, Salt Lake, LA, Phoenix, Denver, Sacramento, SF, Portland and Seattle. That’s the start of the workday, not the noon-hour lunch break of all those East Coast bias cities. I notice the ratings in the middle weren’t so robust in the Central Time zone either.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:58:32 +0000

Also, the bottom 4 markets are all Pacific time zones, which put the inauguration on at 9:00 a.m. Does anyone think that the earlier time of day had an impact?

By: Brad

Brad — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:36:22 +0000

Almost everyone I know watched at least part of it online. I watched everything online until the Balls in the evening. Nielsen tells you who has their TV on but doesn’t tell you who actually watched.

By: Matt C-Roy

Matt C-Roy — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:28:21 +0000

I meant lower %*

By: Matt C-Roy

Matt C-Roy — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:27:53 +0000

It’s possible that the “bluer” areas saw lower & of household numbers because more people got together for viewing parties, thus decreasing the total number of TVs used. I know many people, including myself, at my University gathered in a few bunch of the auditoriums on campus to watch the inauguration with others.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:24:29 +0000

To Michael Hatten:

I wonder if the reason it was low in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco is that those are three very wired cities with people likely to have watched streaming online rather than TV/cable broadcasts of the inauguration?

Alternately, since those are such blue areas, their numbers might be lower than the rest because so many were actually in the National Mall for the festivities.

By: jc

jc — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:21:33 +0000

This does not even come close to how many watched using the internet or other wireless device.
I did see where Google noticed that searches were down during this event though.