Palin by the Numbers
As reported by James Hibberd in today’s the Live Feed, Sarah Palin’s RNC convention speech delivered big in TV viewers. According to Hibberd:
- Palin’s highly anticipated speech on Wednesday night nearly matched the record-setting numbers of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
- Palin pulled in 37.2 million viewers across broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen Media Research.
- That’s 55% higher than Day 3 of the DNC, when her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden, and President Clinton took the stage (24 million).
- It’s also up a sharp 99% from the Republican convention’s third day in 2004 (18.7 million)
- And easily bests the numbers viewers attracted by George W. Bush when he accepted the nomination (27.6 million).
- In fact, it came close to upsetting Obama’s historic address last Thursday — the most-watched convention speech in history (38.4 million viewers).
- Palin’s viewership is up 73% from Tuesday’s RNC tally, when 21.5 million tuned in to see President Bush and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman endorse nominee John McCain. The event also drew more female viewers than Hillary Clinton’s speech last week.
the Live Feed  also reported overall viewership was also up across the board, with Fox News surpassing all others, broadcast or cable. According to Nielsen Media Research:
- Fox News was out in front by a wide margin, with 6.2 million viewers in the 10 p.m. ET hour,
- That was well ahead of second place NBC, which averaged 4.5 million viewers.
- CNN, which had led last week for the Democratic National Convention, averaged 3.2 million viewers.
- CNN came out ahead of either ABC (3.1 million) or CBS (2.9 million). MSNBC averaged 1.6 million viewers for its 10 p.m. coverage.
