Nielsen Media Research: 56.5 Million Viewers Watched The Third & Final Debate
Submitted by John Richburg on Fri, 10/17/2008 - 09:55
Nielsen Media Research reported that nearly of 56.5 million viewers watched the third and final debate between the two presidential hopefuls - Republican John McCain and Democratic Barack Obama - in Hempstead, New York, on October 15. The figures for the third debate are significant – even though less than the 63.2 million viewership for second debate – because it had major league baseball as its TV competition that night.
The 56.5 million represent the collective audience for 11 networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, BBC-America, CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and MUN2. However, Fox skipped the debate coverage to air what turned out to be the final game of the National League Championship Series, as the Philadelphia Phillies moved on to the World Series.
Total viewership for Wednesday’s debate was more than the viewership of the final debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry in 2004 – the figures of which stood at 36.3 million. Fox did not air that debate either because of reasons same as this time - it was carrying a baseball playoff game.
Nielsen overnight numbers, from its 56 local metered markets, recorded a 38.3 household rating. Among the lowest viewership was in Philadelphia and Los Angeles - the hometowns of the Phillies and Dodgers. The third debate ratings is down from the 42.1 rating of the second debate, but up from the first debate’s 34.1, though the first debate had the disadvantage of being on the more lightly viewed Friday schedule.
PBS, which does not form a part of the Nielsen, said 3.2 million viewers tuned in Wednesday night. That was up from the 2.8 million that tuned in to the second debate, which itself was up from the 2.6 million that tuned in for the first debate.
In a comparative analysis of viewership figures for this year’s debates, both Nielson and PBS have the vice-presidential debate – between Senator Joe Biden and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin – as a clear winner. While Nielsen reported a 70 million audience for the October 2 debate, PBS put its figures at 3.5 million.
