Excellent! The more people who actually saw how awful this ticket is, the fewer will fall for the spin about it.

I'd like to sit and listen to a speech written and delivered by McCain. I know most politicans have speech writers, and that the the candidate owns it by giving it, I'd just like to hear McCain give a speech in his own words.

Obama's supporters are more web savvy. I wonder how many watched on the web?

The news on Andrew Sullivan's page seems to suggest that Obama's viewership number did not include PBS audiences whereas the McCain & Palin audience numbers released now include PBS.
(http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/viewer-numbers.html)

I suppose Obama was still the most widely watched, though Palin has been much more talked about since then...

I'm just reminding everyone that tpm published links (yesterday) to focus groups showing that independents and women were not impressed with Palin. I wonder what they thought of her boss.

Remember, people also watch NASCAR to see the crashes.

I wonder how big a lead-in opening night with the Superbowl champs gave him, and how many of those tuned out after a few minutes.

I wouldn't completely discount this however. It very well may be people giving McCain one final chance to see what he has to say for his party.

Honestly, it doesn't surprise me. After Obama made such a brilliant speech, I can imagine more people would want to tune in to see if McCain could meet the challenge and expectations. Unfortunately for him, he didn't.

Lead-in from football on NBC.

Uhh...did that include football ending and IMMEDIATELY going to the RNC?

39.8 million watched last night. 19.2M were women. 17.9M were men. What were the other 1.8M?

Also I would bet there were more Dems that watched all three speeches.

Obama is actually up to 42.5million if you include PBS estimates.

Not a big deal, in my opinion, but accurate numbers are always good.

No way to tell why these folks watched. True, lots of publicity but does not means folks were convinced on anything. Best metric may be short term fund raising?

Chronospark has it exactly right.

McCain was always going to get at least the same viewership as Obama, because anyone who watched Obama was going to be interested in seeing how McCain stacked up.

That could have played to Grampy's advantage if he had held his own, but since he didn't, it doesn't.

today i heard a few thousand people chaning "JOHN MC-CAIN! JOHN MC-CAIN!" at the wisconsin rally.

almost 40 million people watched his speech last night.

he sounds like a celebrity.

The more people saw McCain's performace the better it is for Obama. But what's really grating is that Palin is out attacking Obama, but hasn't faced a single question from a serious reporter. The campaign line that she needs to talk to the voters is the ultimate Orwellian inversion of reality. The voters need to question Palin.

If McCain and the Republicans win with this crap, the Bush years will look good in comparison to what a McCain/Palin administration will do the America's prestige.

I watched Obama's speech on PBS with over a THOUSAND OTHER PEOPLE in a theatre.

Somehow, I doubt that the many, many campaign-organized watch parties--something the campaign pushed very hard--all over the country were factored in to the estimated viewership.

I watched Obama's speech on PBS with over a THOUSAND OTHER PEOPLE in a theatre.

Somehow, I doubt that the many, many campaign-organized watch parties--something the campaign pushed very hard--all over the country were factored in to the estimated viewership.

Well in 04 122 million people voted. So 38 million watched for both the repubs and dems. That means we are playing for the 50 million plus low information voters and middle of the road voters. Odds are more will vote this time. What this says is that the partisan dems and partisan republicans balance out pretty much. It's 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3. Hopefully, obama will be able to sway the middle and low info voters in light of mcbush's and rambo's comments and conduct and how the middle view a third term of the king. Odds are obama takes it, but it sure won't be a cake walk.

It's good to hear that both sides were watched. The contrasts of the candidates and the parties couldn't be more different. The record donations to the Obama campaign and the record number of first-time donors is quite telling.

It's good to hear that both sides were watched. The contrasts of the candidates and the parties couldn't be more different. The record donations to the Obama campaign and the record number of first-time donors is quite telling.

It is so simple, it is sad that no one gets it.

Repugs wouldn't watch that terrorist Muslim liberal. But us dumb ass liberals want to know what that dried up dingy hate and warmonger is up to.

Ya, I know he was a POW

How could that happen, football lead in or not? IIRC, the NE Patriots had a preseason game as the lead in to Obama's speech in the Boston market at least. Also, I guess the silver lining is the fact that with the bigger viewership, McCain's mediocre performance let more people see him stumble.

Bloomberg:

Nielsen didn't include viewership estimates for Public Broadcasting Service stations or C-SPAN, which also aired the political conventions.

end quote

Somebody just wanted the headline: McCain convention speech most watched ever! So they gerrymandered some data together, counted all the TVs left on after football, and there you go!

And yes I have my tinfoil hat on. Fucking chemtrails all over the place.

From the black is white department---Rasmussen today reports McCain is starting the beginning of a bounce----yet in the first day of polling which included his speech---obama went from 48-46 to (statistically meaningless) 49-46. Just because a lot of people watched, does not guarantee they were all that impressed.

Nielsen TV changed their measurement system between Obama's speech and McCain's. Obama may have had more viewers than McCain, despite press reports to the contrary.

The Washington Post has article loudly proclaiming McCain's ratings victory. Then, buried in the middle of the story, is this essential piece of information:

"Nielsen gave McCain and Palin the advantage of a larger sandbox in which to play than the one the Democrats got one week earlier. Nielsen's updated universe estimates -- a.k.a. the number of TV households in the country -- took effect on Monday. That TV universe grew by nearly 2 million homes, which adds substantially to the number of actual viewers in the pool."

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090503406.html

So unless you believe the actual number of TV households increased by nearly 2 million in the space of a week, Nielsen used two different and inconsistent measurement sticks for the two speeches.

Last week, Nielsen assumed a total of 112.8 million TV households in the country to calculate Obama's 38.4 million viewership number.

This week, Nielsen assumed a total of 115.5 million TV households in the country to calculate McCain's 38.9 million viewership number.

And what if you compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges? Using the above numbers, what percentage of TV households watched each candidate's speech?
Obama: 34.04%
McCain: 33.97%

I am no expert on either statistics or Nielsen methodology, but it seems to me that the "McCain had more viewers" storyline might not be true.

Flash Gordon wrote, "Nielsen TV changed their measurement system between Obama's speech and McCain's. Obama may have had more viewers than McCain, despite press reports to the contrary..."

Wow. Is anyone reporting this? I mean, other than burying it in the middle of a Washington Post story, as you show in your link?

This seems like a truly egregious error on the part of the media. I've seen a dozen or more mentions in the press and on TV to McCain's larger viewing audience. Anyway to get the media to make the correction?????

The number of people who watched McCain and/or Obama and/or Palin indicates NOTHING. As many have said, I too watched both McCain and Palin to see the lines they'd be taking not because I was remotely interested in supporting them. Then there's the question of how viewers were counted; I believe that figure is getting adjusted even as you read this.
Also, many more people probably felt they knew where Obama was coming from after the very long Democratic primary campaign. McCain may have been a bit more of a curiosity. And Palin! Noone knew anything about her and so watching her talk just made good sense for responsible voters. I just managed to keep my dinner down during her speech. And I'm in the group supposedly impressed by one of our gender. Not.