In Depth

Palin Beats Hillary, Biden in Broadcast Ratings

Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention last night drew more than 12.75 million viewers on the three broadcast networks, beating out the audiences that tuned into the Democratic convention last week to watch Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Joe Biden.

Sarah Palin

Preliminary national data from Nielsen Media Research shows that’s slightly ahead of the 12.5 million that saw the broadcast coverage of Sen. Clinton’s call for party unity on night 2 of last week’s Democratic gathering and Sen. Joe Biden’s speech accepting the VP nomination for the Democrats on night 3 of their convention last week.

Gov. Palin’s audience was up from the less than 11 million people who watched former Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman Tuesday night on the three broadcast networks’ coverage of the GOP gathering.

It’s also up from the 10.32 million who watched convention specials on the broadcast networks on night 3 of the Republican gathering in 2004.

NBC won the network race at 10 p.m. with an average 7.62 million viewers, according to fast national data from Nielsen Media Research.

ABC finished the three-way broadcast race with an average 5.05 million viewers. CBS was third with 4.63 million viewers.

For updated numbers, click here.

For more election news, visit TVWeek's Election Navigator page.

(Editor: Baumann)

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Comments 18

Philly

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Supreme Irony Alert: The Slobbering Liberoid Democrat Media Shills for Obama have been floundering in an orgy of smears, lies and gutter politics to destroy Governor Palin.

They succeeded in getting her the highest ratings in history, uniting the Republican Party, raisiing millions for McCain-Palin, making Mainstream America furious at Liberal Media Bias, and energizing the Conservative base to get the vote out for the election!

Nice job, morons!

Matthew E

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Sad. I am not sure the numbers are added incorrectly on purpose to give the appearance of lesser appeal - hopefully just a typo. The total of NBC, CBS and ABC is 17.3 million not 12.75. I was one of the many and a previous Hillary supporter. Sarah has secured my vote. Shouldn't have shunned Hillary Barack.

ExDem

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While I don't agree with ANY politician on ALL of their views, at least with McCain/Palin, I don't feel like we are handing over the highest office in this country to a man who has NO views with which I agree.

Mr. Obama, why can't you admit the truth - the surge worked and if Bush and his TRUE cronies had listened to McCain in 2003, this entire war issue could well be moot?

Vote for real change, people. McCain/Palin '08

Flashlight

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After a week of the most intensely saturated media hype of the year....


She still can't beat Obama:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080904/D92VMR981.html

Palin is a fart in a stiff wind.

Not buying it.

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*yawn*

See you at Obama's Inauguration.

Clintonsupporter

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Obama got close to 40 million. And despite all of the hype, all of the endless promotion, only 12.75 million people tuned in to watch Sarah Palin's speech?

Ouch.

Someone's going to be fired.

Clintonsupporter

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Never mind. I just saw the updated numbers.

I thought those seemed awfully low.

JP

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Well, well, well... I see we still have some people out there (comments at the bottom of the page) who fail to lift their heads out of the buried sand.

I was right in the middle until lasts night speech by Sarah Palin and found her to be 100 times the woman Hillary Clinton is - or should I say was... She cannot hold a candle to Sarah Palin!!! I am so excited to see this happening and am truly impressed by McCains choice.

I would have figured all the folks who have been Obama bamboozled would see the light - that executive experience really shines in this case... Biden who?

Robin

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Good. Those numbers are low. Alot of Dems are still not crazy about Clinton but my son said she did a great job of uniting the Country. The only one I wanted to watch was Obama and he knocked it out of the park!

Tried to sit through Palin's speech. Can she do more than name call? Where was the substance?

Mike

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Please TV Week! Compare apples with apples if you're going to quote numbers - or at least give a reasonable reference! You should be ashamed - what is media bias? Please see below:


Sarah Palin's speech wins TV ratings battle in landslide
By RICHARD HUFF
DAILY NEWS TV EDITOR

Thursday, September 4th 2008, 3:37 PM


Acker/Bloomberg

Sarah Palin waves to the crowd - which included almost 38 million television viewers.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin proved Wednesday night she could deliver a good speech - and a huge audience.

An estimated 37.24 million viewers tuned into six networks measured by the Nielsen Company to see the vice presidential nominee's speech before the Republican National Convention.

The numbers were just short of the 38.37 million people who tuned in to see Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama address the Democractic National Convention last Thursday, which aired on 10 networks.

She also topped Obama's vice presidential pick, Sen. Joe Biden, who drew just 24.02 million viewers, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, who averaged 25.9 million, in appearances at the DNC a week before, according to Nielsen.

Palin's speech had been widely anticipated because it was her first nationally televised comments since being named McCain's running mate, and the first since she revealed her 17-year-old daughter Bristol was five-months pregnant.

maureen Webster

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thank goodness the clintons are not in the political climate anymore.. they promised to fix healthcare but instead made it beyond worse...they lied about their finances and just about everything else they touched..for god sake he was impeached...why would we want a clinton in the white house again geo bush was in office for about a minute before we were attacked on 911. then the republicans have to play clean up for 8 years of failed leadership and security.. then hillary says the war is wrong .omg am i the only one who feels that the clintons are simply ridiculous? my only feeling of justice served to the horrible clintons is gov sarah palin.haha hillary

Carol

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I honestly don't see this as big news, or a big deal for Republicans to celebrate. Who knew anything about Sarah Palin? Why wouldn't Americans tune in to try to see who she is, since she has been picked as a VP candidate? At this late stage in the game to be introducing someone so new and so lacking in national exposure, I think is rather irresponsible. I think it would be even more irresponsible for American voters to not do their due diligence on all of the candidates, especially this one.

Since this was the first opportunity the nation had to see this unknown individual, every American voter should have all been watching.

Jimmy O. Ojwang

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I salute all Democrats across the country and my advice to all is that we should work hard for our own Presidential candidate Barak Obama because we can`t aford another 4 good years of failed policies.John McCain is just proud to have been a soldier and to have faced challenges like other`s,not only him in the America history,the bottom line is that John McMcain canot be the president because he is very old and his mind is full of military issues,while common people are surfering economicaly on the ground.You just heard what he was talking about in his speech...not interesting at all.OBAMA is a God send to American`s and we`ll vote for him.

Bob S.

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Why is it the press is so anxious to tear into Sarah? Why do they have to know about so many things? I did not hear anyone ask Bobby Kennedy many years ago about his 10 children. How about the great woman Nancy Pelosi and her 5 children and the role of one of the most important woman in the world. While the Republican convention may have been short of the 80,000 seat stadium there was a delight in the convention and now across the nation.

Inspired

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Sarah Palin is amazing! For once in my life, I have gotten to see a politician say it like it is. She really seems so down to earth on issues and ideology. She and McCain make a great team and I think that they could hit themselves a homerun to the white house! Both have a history of reaching across party lines, but where was Obama during this? Oh yeah, that's right, he was in make-up for his show. Obama needs to get over himself if he wants to win this election. The Americans are getting really sick of his ego.

Jeanie

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Thank you Sarah Palin you speak for millions of American women who are shouted out by mouthy pro-choice advocates responsible for the killing of 40 million innocent unborn children.

Sarah Palin speaks for millions of women around the world.

Dan

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I have not been impressed with the Republican party specifically the Bush Administration, but after listening to Governor Palin and John McCain I am thouroughly impressed with this ticket. IT SCARES ME TO DEATH that someone as inexperienced as Obama who lacks the sincerity to admit the most obvious truths could even come this close to the Presidency! McCain/Palin CONGRATULATIONS! you guys have secured my vote go fight in Washington for the American people, I know you will!

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Secretly, everyone wants to see a train wreck. Palin is no genius, but an interesting disaster. She flails and the American public love watching it.