The second presidential debate Tuesday between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama is rated among the most watched television events. Nielsen Media Research said that, in comparison to the 52.4 million viewers of the first debate on September 26, more than 63 million people tuned in on Tuesday. The figure represents the collective audience for 11 networks - ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, BBC-America, CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC.

Nielson did not release the ratings for individual networks for the 90-minute forum, but ABC appears to have drawn the largest audience with about 13.2 million. NBC placed second with its coverage garnering 10.86 million viewers, where as CBS had 9.44 million.

Though the October 7 forum, moderated by NBC News’ Tom Brokaw at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, outpaced the first McCain-Obama meeting by nearly 21%, the audience was still smaller than the nearly 70 million people who tuned in for the vice presidential debate between Republican Sarah Palin and Democratic Joe Biden.

Nielson said that the Tuesday night showdown became the 10th-most-watched presidential debate in history, and the most-watched since 1992. It added: “Clearly this second debate benefited from being on a Tuesday instead of a Friday. Other possible factors could be a spillover effect from the VP debate or growing interest in public affairs because of the deepening financial crisis.”

PBS, the audience counts of which are not included in the Nielsen figures, said an estimated 2.8 million watched its coverage of Tuesday night’s debate. As for the other two debates, there were 2.6 million viewers for the first presidential debate, and 3.5 million for the vice presidential face-off.

The third and final debate between McCain and Obama will be about domestic and economic policy and will take place at the Hofstra University on October 15.