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Thursday, September 4, 2008
RNC: Sarah Palin strikes ratings gold
Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin is ratings gold!
The Republican’s veep nominee attracted 37,244,000 viewers on Wednesday night, according to Nielsen Media Research.
That’s 13 million more than watched Democratic veep nominee Joe Biden and close to the 38.4 million viewers who watched Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver.
Who said politics can’t draw a crowd!
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Palin sparks TV fire for Republicans
Is there any way at all that John McCain’s acceptance speech tonight can top the drama and frenzy that surrounded last night’s appearance by Sarah Palin?
Absolutely not. McCain has managed to upstage himself at his own Republican National Convention. But in terms of stirring interest in a convention that seemed doomed by comparison to the slickly produced drama of the Democrats, Palin was the best thing that could have happened to the Republicans.
Consider: Before McCain announced his choice for veep, the prospect of endless speeches by a bunch of aging conservatives was daunting. Although the broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — had only planned an hour of prime time anyway, head-scratching was underway about how exactly to fill that hour.
But then along came unknown Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, a former beauty queen with zero national exposure, and suddenly there was excitement all over the place — not all of it welcomed by the Republicans. But even frantic attention has got to be better than no attention, right?
It’s almost as if McCain planned the frenzy. If indeed he already knew about Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter and the investigation into “trooper-gate” back home on the frozen tundra, he must have known that the media and the country would soon be electrified by his choice.
The TV coverage, which might have been lethargic on the heels of Barack Obama’s inspiring speech before 84,000 people in Denver, has thus been anything but. The Republicans were able to gin it up even further by attacking the media for investigating the unknown veep nominee and her family.
CNN’s Campbell Brown got into a shouting match with Republican strategist Tucker Eskew, Fox’s Sean Hannity got into a shouting match with Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs and (here’s the really BIG news) Obama is scheduled to be interviewed by Bill O’Reilly tonight on Fox — before McCain makes his grand entrance!
As a theatrical production, the Republican convention has paled compared to the Denver gathering. It’s a smaller number of delegates, which makes the crowd seem tamer, and that enormous, scene-changing screen behind the speaker’s podium is distracting. Fred Thompson, a very large man, was dwarfed by the waving flag and mountain scenes, and Rudy Giuliani looked momentarily confused by the looming monstrosity when he came out onto the stage.
I may have missed it, while flipping from cable news to PBS to the broadcast networks, but I saw no coverage of Ron Paul’s mini-convention that apparently took place in Minneapolis. That’s good news for the Republicans.
The TV ratings have not been touted this week the way they were in Denver — which probably means not as many people have been tuning in. Although I bet last night’s Palin speech did extremely well.
For the Democratic convention, CNN topped the ratings, beating the broadcast networks as well as cable competitors. Fox came in second, and MSNBC, which has a definite liberal slant (thanks to Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann), finished a distant third among the cable nets.
We can probably expect Fox to win the war this time around.
UPDATE: The ratings for Tuesday night’s RNC are here, delayed by the Labor Day holiday:
9 to 10 p.m. - Broadcast + Cable ratings for Tuesday of RNC
FOX: 6,179,000
NBC: 4,468,000
CNN: 3,220,000
ABC: 3,098,000
CBS: 2,928,000
MSNBC: 1,590,000
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