Nielsen: McCain's Speech Slightly Trumps Obama's
The television audience for Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech was slightly larger than the audience for Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech, despite being carried by fewer channels.
TV Week News reports that McCain had 38.9 million viewers compared with Obama's 38.38 million viewers (Nielsen research). Both speeches were carried by three broadcast networks and three cable news networks. Both speeches were carried by Telemundo and Univision, Spanish-language channels. Only Obama's speech was "carried live by BET and TV One, which target African American audiences."
After Obama's speech, news reports touted the audience this way:
More people watched Obama speak from a packed stadium in Denver on Thursday than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year, Nielsen Media Research said Friday...
Through four days, the Democratic convention was seen in an average of 22.5 million households. No other convention — Republican or Democratic — had been seen in as many homes since Nielsen began keeping these records for the Kennedy-Nixon campaign in 1960.
I really really wish that reporters had to take classes in statistics. Comparisons like this one -- raw audience sizes -- are meaningless. Why? The total number of households -- the total number of people -- grows every year. The data need to be normalized (like deflating dollars).
But let's not let facts get in the way of great narratives.
Here's a normalized look at the data. There have been 13 election cycles since 1960; in seven of those cycles, a greater percentage of US households watched the Democratic National Convention than in 2008. In other words, since television became a "big deal" in political electioneering, the 2008 viewership is smack dab in the middle.
In 1992, 20.5 million households watched the DNC, according to Nielsen. There were 95.7 million households in the US, according to the Census Bureau. That means 21.4% of US households watched the convention.
For 2008, the percentage watching is estimated at 19.4%.
In fact, in 1960, 1964, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1992 a larger percentage of households watched the Democratic National Convention on television than in 2008. What we don't know yet: how many people (like me) watched the convention speeches on their computers.
You might say that household data is also suspect -- after all, the number of people per household in 1960 is not the same as in 2008. And you'd be right to wonder. I'll be back with a report on that, too.
I'll do the same analysis for Republican National Conventions next week when data are available online.
See Historical TV Ratings For Democratic Conventions, 1960-2008 and Historical TV Ratings For Republican Conventions, 1960-2008
Comments
I think the definition of “household” for Nielsen purposes has also changed. In the 1960s, or even the 1980s, homes were more likely to have only one TV. If the TV was tuned to the convention, the entire family probably watched. Now that so many households have more than one TV, it’s more likely that only one person is watching that TV. If this year’s conventions were viewed in more homes compared to past election years, it doesn’t mean they were viewed by more people.
I didn’t watch Obama’s speech on TV, but I downloaded it onto my iPod. All of the major speeches are available for free on iTunes, either with or without video.
These ratings are meaningless when it comes to who is going to vote for whom. I watched both speeches. One was inspiring, the other was like watching cottage cheese in green and blue jello. I watched McCain only to see the car wreck that he is. But i watched so that would make me one of the numbers that they’re relying on to make this estimation. Has nothing to do with who i’m voting for. Has everything to do with wanting to compare and contrast a great speaker to a terrible one.