ABC wins the night. FOX leads on Cable....

[aaaaaa5a]

FYI... A household share is the % of homes that watched the TV event.

Example... A 5.0 rating means 5% of all U.S. Households were watching the particular program.



A share is what % of viewers watching TV at a given time were watching the program in question.

Example... A 5.0 share means that of all the people watching TV at the given time, 5% of them were watching this specific program.




So when ABC gets a 7.1/11 rating. It means 7% of all TV households in the country were watching the program. And of all the households watching TV at the time, 11% of them were watching ABC.



Here are the debate rating results.

1) ABC-7.1/11

2) NBC-6.2/10

3) CBS-5.0/8

4) FOX Cable news- 4.7

5) CNN-4.1

6) FOX (network only)-3.1/5

7) MSNBC-2.2


In raw numbers, about 57 million people saw last nights debate. That is significantly lower than the number of viewers many "experts" thought would tune in to see Obama/McCain.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. I would have watched MSNBC except they pulled Keith and I really really dislike Gregory.

So I watched it on PBS. I did watch Keith and Rachel though.

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. Perhaps MSNBC will get the message? Seems I remember that NBC/MSNBC

did much better during the conventions? I could be wrong.

[aaaaaa5a]

3. Last Nights Coverage Was Real Strange...

I watched CNN and recorded MSNBC and FOX NEWS. Having watched the immediate "post game analysis" on all 3 Cable talk shows, Obama actually had the most favorable coverage on CNN.

I was shocked that the treatment OBAMA had on FOX and MSNBC was actually about the same. (I hope MSNBC isn't starting to back down!) In fact the FOX focus group of undecided voters favored OBAMA. I was stunned!!! (I bet that won't happen again!) Still with MSNBC turning to the the dark side, you basically had two news channels that were anti-OBAMA and 1 news channel that was neutral.


Of course MSNBC and FOX NEWS returned to their core viewership when KO and SH followed the post debate wrap up.

[Phx_Dem]

8. Actually Keith was on following the debate.

Followed by Chris Matthews and then Rachel.

They had great coverage.

[msallied]

4. I ended up watching it on MSNBC and was aghast at the coverage afterward.

But I mucked through it until KO came on.

[tsuki]

5. We watched on CSpan2. Most of my friends watched on CSpan2.

No numbers for CSpan? Then how do they know how many watched the debate? Answer: they don't. They only know how many watched the commercial stations. Unreliable figures.

[and-justice-for-all]

7. Yes, I never watch such things anywhere else..

M$M commentary drives me up a wall.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Agreed. I watched CSPAN2 as well.

They don't have those figures or PBS. But I still don't think that would take it much over the 60,000,000 mark. Friday and Saturday nights tend to be the least watched TV nights.

[jezebel]

6. I wonder if the show about Obama and McCain that led into the debate helped ABC. Anyone see it? Was

it fair to Obama or a hitjob?

[aaaaaa5a]

9. I missed it...

I'm still kicking myself, for not rolling a DVR on ABC. But maybe running Biographies on McCain and Obama before the debate helped.

I wish we could have some feedback on those biographies from anyone that saw it.

[Phred42]

11. IIF MSNBC put Olbermann and Rachel on

and dropped Tweety & The Nazi they would do much better. I might even watch rather than go do C-SPAN as I do

[marlakay]

12. I wonder how many still have basic cable and only

have 3 choices abc, cbs, and nbc. My mom is one of those and I know alot of people who only have that. So it doesn't seem far to lump in the cable news in the same way. It should be based on what percent have total cable and then choose channels.

[aaaaaa5a]

13. CNN beat the broadcast networks in total viewership

for their coverage of the Democratic convention. The Broadcast networks still have a big edge. But it is smaller than it use to be.

[Jennicut]

14. MSNBC is alienating its viewers, which are left of center

They think they will get more viewers this way but instead they are losing people who used to watch them. CNN was much more fair last night, at least until there was KO and Rachel.

[aaaaaa5a]

15. I agree 100%

I couldn't believe it. For the first half hour after the debate, there was no difference between FOX and MSNBC.

Do these people look at TV ratings? RM and KO are the best thing to EVER happen to this struggling channel. Holding RM until 1AM was ridiculous!