Obama jobs speech drew 31 million viewers, Nielsen says

[jefferson_dem]

For comparison purposes, 25M watched Obama's Afghanistan speech in June, 48M watched SOTU5, and 4M watched GOP debate Wed.

Obama jobs speech drew 31 million viewers, Nielsen says



President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress drew 31.4 million viewers Thursday night, Nielsen reports.

Coverage for Obama’s address about creating jobs ran in the 7 p.m. hour. Nielsen based the total audience on viewers for 11 networks.

Obama’s speech about the death of Osama bin Laden drew 56.5 million viewers in May.

Obama’s address on Libya pulled in 26.6 million viewers in March.

Among the cable channels Thursday night, Fox News was first with nearly 3.4 million viewers. CNN drew nearly 1.9 million, and MSNBC pulled in almost 1.7 million. In the 25-to-54 age group, which is most important to news advertisers, Fox News Channel was first with 826,000. CNN drew 645,000, and MSNBC attracted 430,000.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2011/09/obama-jobs-speech-drew-31-million-viewers-nielsen-says.html

[marlakay]

1. Wonder how many watched online?

I am away from home and only have ipad and saw it on whitehouse.gov

[GoCubsGo]

3. Me, too. n/t

[ClarkUSA]

4. The numbers also don't include those who watched on C-SPAN.

I watched it live AND twice more on C-SPAN afterwards because I missed parts due to many in my OFA group cheering in my living room. ;)

[FrenchieCat]

5. Plus there was a giant power outage in southern Cal and parts of Arizona......

I forget how many were without power, but it was a lot of people!

something like 2 million people or something like that.

Plus on the Westcoast, most people were still at work when he spoke,
and they may not have watched it till later on Youtube or elsewhere.

[bigwillq]

7. They don't play it back on tape delay on the West Coast?

I think they do for some live events, right? Not sure about speeches though.

[FrenchieCat]

10. No, they don't play it back on tape delay.......

Unless that's what they feel like doing.

Most folks would have tried to record it,
as I did......

[tblue37]

22. That's how I watched it, too. nt

[ClarkUSA]

2. And that's with a 5+ million hit with a blackout on the West Coast.

[YvonneCa]

19. Correct. AND most didn't get power back until...

...early this (Friday) morning. Most Dems I know did watch it today. ;)

[Misskittycat]

21. Yup. Missed it here in the dark.

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. Yup! Yup!

:headbang:

[emulatorloo]

8. Interesting stuff, thanks for posting n/t

[Demoiselle]

9. Is my math shaky or do these numbers mean that...

cable news is still a pretty small portion of the overall television audience?

[jefferson_dem]

14. That's true. Broadcast news still dominates.

The top rated show on the top rated cable network (Fauxnews) gets maybe 2.5M viewers.

NBC Nightly News and ABC World News routinely rake in 7M+ each, with CBS Evening News bringing in 6M+.

[Honeycombe8]

28. It wasn't really a "news" audience, though. It pre-empted existing shows...

more people watch the network channels during prime time, I'd guess, than watch cable channels, all of which carry political opinion or news shows at that time slot.

Also, a lot of people still don't have cable channels, sticking to the old network channels, either out of choice or because of cost.

All this is a guess. I watch cable stations almost exclusively, incl. a few movie channels and Discovery and such. I rarely watch Network stations. The shows just don't interest me. (I am proud to say that I've never seen American Idol.)

[golfguru]

11. Just based on those numbers, Obama gets 4 more years!

He is as popular as ever!

[rpannier]

12. It's good to know

Thanks for posting
K&R

[Pisces]

13. Excellent timing before the football game.

[alp227]

18. The Saints/Packers game had about 27 million (just on NBC)

tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/09/09/thursday-final-ratings-packerssaints-ratings-cbs-fall-preview-adjusted-up/103154/

[slackmaster]

15. And close to zero of them were in San Diego County

We had no electrical power. I still haven't heard anyone around here talking about the speech.

[Phx_Dem]

16. That's alot considering it was 4pm on the West Coast so many were still at work.

In Mountain zone it was only 5pm so many people were sitting in traffic on their way home from work.

[bigdarryl]

17. What about Current TV viewers

[YvonneCa]

20. I was one of...

...those. :7

[SadPanda]

24. Sadly, Current TV is a joke... the #s don't lie....

Fox news pulls in nearly 10 times as many viewers just in the 18-35 bracket vs total Current viewers.

[Norrin Radd]

30. That's because Fox is on basic cable.

[shireen]

23. 10% of the country

where were the other 90% ?

[Qutzupalotl]

26. It's about 30% of likely voters.

Remember the 300 million figure includes infants and children.

[shireen]

29. yikes! thanks! nt

[vroomvroom]

25. Shame the President refuses to use this amount of exposure to ever call out Republicans.

Make the audiences know who are the villains but he seems too scared to ever want to ruffle feathers so the public stays ignorant and he continues to do what republcians want

[Honeycombe8]

27. I, like many others, tuned in to hear about jobs. I didn't want to hear whining and bickering...

and pointing and blaming, or people calling out "you lie!"

We have a serious situation in the country. Millions are without jobs, millions more are underemployed. I wanted to hear his jobs plan.

He was wise not to make it sound like he was dressing down the Republicans.

We will all know whose fault it is, if the bill isn't passed (and it probably won't be). THEN I hope he hits the trail to let everyone know whose fault it is...that the Republicans cared more about politics than people suffering for 14 months.

[uponit7771]

31. If this doesnt count radio then wow....good job Obama