Prez Battle Flourishes Online During Political Conventions

admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:05:23 +0000

Vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin may be in the headlines, but the chatter in the blogosphere remains focused on the presidential candidates, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, according to Nielsen Online.

Online Buzz
An analysis by Nielsen of the online discussions around more than 30 speakers at the Democratic and Republican conventions showed Obama leading McCain, followed by Palin and Sen. Hillary Clinton. Vice-presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Biden, rounded out the top five most buzzworthy politicians.

Rank	Speaker	Index
1	Barack Obama	100
2	John McCain	97
3	Sarah Palin	80
4	Hillary Clinton	33
5	Joe Biden	26
6	George W. Bush	12
7	Michelle Obama	12
8	Bill Clinton	11
9	Cindy McCain	5
10	Ted Kennedy	5
11	Nancy Pelosi	4
12	Mitt Romney	4
13	Al Gore	4
14	Joe Lieberman	4
15	Rudy Giuliani	3
16	Fred Thompson	3
17	Mike Huckabee	3
18	Laura Bush	2
19	Jimmy Carter	2
20	Mark Warner	2
Source: The Nielsen Company. Nielsen’s analysis is based on online consumer discussions between August 25 and 29, 2008 for DNC speakers and from Sept. 1 to 5, 2008 for RNC speakers.
Speakers are ranked by online buzz, with the top speaker indexed at 100.

Online Traffic
Web traffic to BarackObama.com increased 32% during the week of the Democratic National Convention. During the same period, traffic to McCain’s website increased 242%, perhaps driven by the announcement, late in the week, of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Still, traffic to Obama’s site outpaced traffic to McCain’s site by a two-to-one ratio in the week ending August 31.

Site	Unique Audience Week Ending Aug. 24 (000)	Unique Audience Week Ending Aug. 31 (000)	Growth
BarackObama.com	2,617	3,445	32%
JohnMcCain.com	524*	1,791	242%
Source: The Nielsen Company, custom analysis (August 18, 2008 – August 31, 2008)
*This website does not meet minimum sample size standards. Projected and average measures for this site may exhibit large changes as a result.

Online Advertising
John McCain’s campaign increased its online advertising in August, with image-based impressions up by 254% month-over-month and sponsored search links up by 43%.

Barack Obama’s campaign placed fewer online ad impressions during the same time period, reducing image-based impressions by 48% and sponsored links by 18%.

View the full media alert.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in TV Week, The Boston Globe, Condé Nast Portfolio, and Silicon Alley Insider.

Day 3 DNC Ratings For Clinton, Biden Dip Slightly

admin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:25:02 +0000

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 the DNC’s TV audience, with 18.1% of all Americans in that age group — 12.5 million people — tuning in to Wednesday night’s convention coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, BET, and TV One.

	RATING	NUMBER
All Households	16.4	18,481,000
Persons 2+	8.4	24,029,000
Persons 12-17	1.9	440,000
Persons 18-34	4.7	3,131,000
Persons 18-49	6.2	8,153,000
Persons 55+	18.1	12,509,000
African American Persons 2+ *	12.2	4,413,000
Hispanic Persons 2+ *	2.7	1,159,000
White Persons 2+ *	8.4	18,125,000
Source: The Nielsen Company (August 27, 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, BET, and TV One.
*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.

In comparison to day three of the 2004 convention, which drew almost 18 million viewers, the audience for day three of the 2008 convention was still significantly larger (up by a third to 24 million viewers).

On Wednesday, August 27, 2008, convention coverage varied by network, with all eight networks noted above airing live coverage from approximately 10pm to 11pm EST.

View the full media alert.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in MarketWatch, The New York Times’ “TV Decoder” blog, and Variety.

Nielsen Wire » Hillary Clinton

Prez Battle Flourishes Online During Political Conventions

Day 3 DNC Ratings For Clinton, Biden Dip Slightly