Comments on: Thompson, Lieberman Draw Fewer Viewers Than Dems’ Day 2

By: Montco PA Dem

Montco PA Dem — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:43:25 +0000

I’ve been trying to find stats to back this up, but haven’t come up with anything so far. Maybe you can help:

It seems like the Republican convention would have a built-in ratings advantage by taking place the week after Labor Day. In theory, there should be a larger universe of Households Using Television this week, with schools back in session and family vacations over with.

Is there any Neilsen historical data that would back this up, showing that there are simply more people watching television in the first week of September vs. the last week of August? After all, isn’t that why broadcast networks used to wait until September to unveil their new lineups?

Thanks for any light you may be able to shed on this…

Bruce Bailey

Collegeville, PA

By: Nielson Ratings : S E I B U O N E

Nielson Ratings : S E I B U O N E — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:27:10 +0000

[...] Nielson ratings are coming in for GOP Convention. This seems to jibe with the enthusiasm gap we’ve been seeing, Gustav probably had an impact as well. Numbers should be up for last night’s wingnut lovefest. We’ll see… [...]

By: R. P. Reitz

R. P. Reitz — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:54:38 +0000

I will tell you one reason why fewer people viewed the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night. It was because of the so-called “coverage” by CBS. Let me explain.
Last week, my wife and I watched the Democratic National Convention on CBS. They aired it properly.
Now, of course, it is no big secret that CBS News people are blatantly pro-Obama, but I didn’t expect them to treat the RNCC so shabbily last night (Tuesday night). Earlier in the day, CBS said that they would cover the RNCC at 10pm. Both my wife and I expected that they would air the convention like they did with the DNCC. So, we waited to watch it. But we couldn’t watch it because CBS didn’t air the convention.
When 10 pm came around, the “coverage” of the convention consisted in large measure to Couric talking with people off to the side of the convention floor or to a another talking head or two. They did not air the convention speakers like they did when the DNCC was aired.
My wife, who has no political ax to grind, was disappointed and angry with CBS. So, I quickly went to the internet and we watched the RNCC via the Fox News internet site (live feed). So we didn’t miss too much. But we kept the television on CBS (no audio…we listened to the audio from the Fox News) just to see what CBS was doing. Essentially, if you tuned into CBS to watch the convention, you would be sorely disappointed to see talking heads and people off to the side rather than the convention speakers or the convention itself. Now who wants to watch that? Not me. Not my wife.
This morning my wife made the comment to me that the people at CBS News should be fired for what they did. I told her that the only way to “fire” them is to simply turn the channel and get your news from another source. So, tonight we went to Fox News. I did flip on the television and did note that, unlike last night, CBS actually aired the convention speakers at 10pm tonight. But I will not depend on CBS for any “news” because they filter it. They only present the “news” that they want you to see.

So, if you folks at Nielson wonder why fewer people watched the television last night to catch Republican speakers like Fred Thompson, one reason may be that, like my wife and me, (we were counting on CBS to air it) was that CBS didn’t really “air” it…at least, not the way they had done last week with the DNCC. You know, if broadcast television “news” continues to filter the news, I believe that you are going to see fewer and fewer viewers of television news and more and more people getting their news from the internet. The days when the major networks could get away with withholding the news or could filter the news are over. We viewers have too many other ways to get the real news instead of what CBS passes off as “news”.

R. P. Reitz

By: Republicans Lose TV Viewers | Press Blog Search

Republicans Lose TV Viewers | Press Blog Search — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:19:42 +0000

[...] Lose TV Viewers Nielsen released television ratings for the second day of the Republican National Convention. Some of the [...]

By: Republicans Lose TV Viewers | GroupHelp.NET

Republicans Lose TV Viewers | GroupHelp.NET — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:12:40 +0000

[...] by admin as Political Nielsen released television ratings for the second day of the Republican National Convention. Some of the [...]