Monday September 1, 2008

I've Been Thinking:

National political conventions are still big, very big.
38.4 million people watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech - that number is mind boggling.

More Americans tuned in to watch the final night of the Democratic National Convention than the 34.2 million who watched the opening of the Beijing Olympics.
More Americans tuned in to watch the final night of the Democratic National Convention than watched the finals of American Idol.
Only four Super Bowl games in history have hit the 40 million mark.
Four years ago only about half as many people, 20 million, tuned in to watch John Kerry give his acceptance speech.
Ten commercial stations carried the speech, so did PBS but they did not pay Neilson to gather their numbers which could mean that 40 million Americans actually tuned in.

There will be no fair way to compare the numbers watching the Republican National Convention with those who watched the Democratic Convention, nature has other plans.
But one thing is certain, even in the age of You Tube, Americans are still interested enough to tune in for live coverage of national politics.
Surprised me.

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