On Monday February 9, 2009 President Barack Obama held his first prime time news conference. The conference was telecast live from 8 to 9PM on 8 networks achieving a combined 30.8 household rating with 49,455,133 viewers. The networks were ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Univision, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC.
Just weeks after his inauguration in 1993 President Bill Clinton also held a prime time news conference. That event focused on the economy and was carried by 4 networks on February 15, 1993. The sum of the …

Since John McCain’s announcement that his running mate would be Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, blogs have been buzzing about this little-known leader of the 49th state. According to Nielsen Online’s BuzzMetrics service, the Aug 29th event sent chatter about Palin well beyond that for her Democratic rival Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, whose announcement on August 22, impacted slightly more than 1.75% of all blog posts, compared with Palin’s peak above 2.25%. Even the impending Gulf Coast landfall of Hurricane Gustav on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina was overshadowed …

More than 24 million people watched the third night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention — a 7.5% decrease from 26 million viewers on day two of the convention.
Wednesday night’s speeches, which featured Former President Bill Clinton’s endorsement of Senator Obama and Senator Joseph Biden’s acceptance of his party’s nomination for vice president, drew 12.2% of all African American viewers — down slightly from the prevous night when Hillary Clinton addressed the convention (12.7%), but up from day one (12%), when Michelle Obama spoke.
Viewers age 55 and older continue to dominate …