During the vice presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin last week, CBS and Nielsen tracked real-time reactions to the candidates from a panel of uncommitted, registered voters who allowed CBS and Nielsen to capture their real-time reactions to the V.P. debate. However, CBS notes that in many cases, the panelists were “leaning” towards the Obama-Biden ticket.
Watch CBS’s analysis.

As they watched the debate, panel members turned a dial between 0 and 100 to indicate their reactions to the candidates’ discussion. 100 indicates a “very positive” response, 0 …

Sixty-one percent of all U.S. households watched at least one of the two 2008 election debates aired so far, according to a new analysis released Monday by Nielsen.
On average, 41% of all homes watched the V.P. debate last Thursday — up one-third from the first presidential debate the previous Friday night, which reached an average of 31% of all households.
Of all households, 39% watched neither debate, while 30.3% tuned in to both.  11.2% of all homes tuned in to the presidential debate only, and 19.5% tuned in to just the V.P. debate. 

On Tuesday night, 69.9 million viewers tuned in to watch the sole vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
The Biden-Palin matchup set a new V.P. debate TV audience record, beating the previous high of 56.7 million viewers set by the debate between Rep. Geraldine Ferraro and then-V.P. George H.W. Bush in 1984*. 
Biden and Palin’s debate also surpassed the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, which drew an audience of 52.4 million last Friday night.
During the last presidential election in 2004, the vice presidential debate between V.P. Dick Cheney and Sen. …

The combined overall household rating for Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, in 55 of the 56 local television markets where Nielsen maintains electronic TV meters, was 45.0.
One rating point equals 1% of the total TV audience in a given market.
The Baltimore market had the largest TV audience, with a household rating of 59.1, while the Los Angeles market had the lowest household rating: 34.4.

CBS’s “Survivor: Gabon” beat out post-debate analyses of the vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden to claim the slot as the most-watched primetime telecast on broadcast TV for Thursday, October 2, 2008.  Almost 13.1 million average viewers tuned in to watch the second episode of the new “Survivor” season.
Post-debate coverage on ABC and NBC rounded out the top three, with 9.778 million and 9.777 million average viewers, respectively.
CBS and FOX’s post-debate coverage also made the top ten, drawing almost 8 million and just over 4 million average viewers, …

Barack Obama’s campaign made political history when it used text-messaging to announce Joe Biden’s V.P. selection to 2.9 million mobile users.  Obama’s campaign also maintains a mobile website with news, video, and downloads.
In contrast, John McCain’s campaign has largely eschewed mobile marketing.  But that may just be the right strategy, according to Nielsen Mobile, which reported Monday that mobile advertising is a more efficient way to reach Democrats, rather than Republicans.
As of the second quarter of 2008, mobile media of all types were slightly more popular among Democrats, who were …

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 …

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 …