crin63
09-04-2008, 03:07 PM
Wow! Was there any doubt how many viewers would tune in. Look out Berry.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - More than 37 million U.S. TV viewers tuned in to watch Sarah Palin accept the Republican nomination for vice president on Wednesday, just shy of the record set last week by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, Nielsen Media Research reported.
Nielsen has said the 38.4 million-viewer average by Obama's address last Thursday is believed to be the biggest television audience ever for a U.S. political convention speech, and Palin's tally of 37.2 million came close to that.
But she appears to have set a new Republican benchmark by easily surpassing the 27.6 million viewers drawn by President George W. Bush at the end of the Republican National Convention in 2004, when he was nominated for a second term, a Nielsen analyst told Reuters.
The feisty speech by Palin, as she went on the attack against Obama and cast herself as a political reformer, also drew a far bigger audience than Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, who averaged 24 million viewers with his acceptance speech last Wednesday.
The high tune-in for Palin was no doubt bolstered by the high curiosity factor surrounding the first-term Alaska governor, who was thrust from obscurity onto the national stage last Friday when she was named John McCain's surprise pick for a running mate.
Despite a flurry of recent disclosures about her past political and personal intrigues, including news that her unmarried, teenage daughter is pregnant, Palin was enthusiastically received by Republican convention delegates as she made her national prime-time TV debut.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-35323420080904
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - More than 37 million U.S. TV viewers tuned in to watch Sarah Palin accept the Republican nomination for vice president on Wednesday, just shy of the record set last week by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, Nielsen Media Research reported.
Nielsen has said the 38.4 million-viewer average by Obama's address last Thursday is believed to be the biggest television audience ever for a U.S. political convention speech, and Palin's tally of 37.2 million came close to that.
But she appears to have set a new Republican benchmark by easily surpassing the 27.6 million viewers drawn by President George W. Bush at the end of the Republican National Convention in 2004, when he was nominated for a second term, a Nielsen analyst told Reuters.
The feisty speech by Palin, as she went on the attack against Obama and cast herself as a political reformer, also drew a far bigger audience than Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, who averaged 24 million viewers with his acceptance speech last Wednesday.
The high tune-in for Palin was no doubt bolstered by the high curiosity factor surrounding the first-term Alaska governor, who was thrust from obscurity onto the national stage last Friday when she was named John McCain's surprise pick for a running mate.
Despite a flurry of recent disclosures about her past political and personal intrigues, including news that her unmarried, teenage daughter is pregnant, Palin was enthusiastically received by Republican convention delegates as she made her national prime-time TV debut.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-35323420080904