All News Nets Rise With Hillary’s DNC Speech
Senator's Speech Outdelivers Mrs. Obama's; NBC, CNN Continue To Set The Viewer, Demo Paces
By Mike Reynolds & Larry Barrett -- Multichannel News, 8/27/2008 1:10:00 PM
Their positioning of the proceedings aside, all of the cable and broadcast news networks posted gains Tuesday night over their viewership totals from the first night of the Democratic National Convention.
During Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech from 10 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. on Aug. 26, NBC averaged 5.98 million total viewers, with CNN counting 4.86 million, according to Nielsen Media Research data. That was up 27% from the 4.7 million and 14% to 4.27 million viewers, respectively, that tuned in those networks in the 10 p.m. hour Aug. 25, when Michelle Obama delivered her speech.
ABC scored 4.76 million viewers Tuesday, up 14% from 4.17 million, while CBS totaled 3.82 million, 10% more than the 3.46 million it registered on the first night of the DNC in Denver. Fox News Channel tallied 3.55 million, up 22% from 2.92 million, as MSNBC lifted its Tuesday count 27% to 2.66 million from 2.09 million..
The network rankings were also the same, night to night, among the news demo. NBC was first with 2.47 million adults 25 to 54 during the aforementioned span Tuesday night, followed by CNN with 1.92 million and ABC’s 1.76 million. CBS was fourth with 1.68 million, MSNBC fifth with 1.06 million and Fox News’s 944,000.
All of the cable news networks registered significant gains over the comparable 10 p.m. hour of the second night of the 2004 DNC. Fox News’s average viewership grew 89% to 3.48 million from 1.85 million total four years ago, as CNN’s rose 64% to 4.81 million from 2.94 million. MSNBC’s average audience ascended 39% to 2.57 million from 1.85 million.
Relative to Monday night, MSNBC, up 23% from 2.09 million scored the biggest advance from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.. Fox News grew 19% from 2.92 million Monday, while CNN increased 13% from 4.27 million.
Those six networks, plus BET and TV One, collectively posted a 17.8 rating and just under 26 million viewers on average Tuesday from 10 p.m. to 11:15 p.m., up from a 15.1 rating and more than 20 million viewers Monday night in the 10 p.m. hour, according to Nielsen data.
Gauged against the news demo, CNN posted a 14% gain to 1.89 million of those viewers Tuesday night versus 775,000 during the corresponding period in 2004. Fox News grew 64% to 911,000 from 557,000, with MSNBC ahead 36% to 1.02 million from 748,000 four years earlier.
Measured from Monday’s telecast, CNN climbed 21% Tuesday from 1.57 million, MSNBC 14% from 894,000 and Fox News 6% from 862,000 in the comparable 10 p.m. hours.
In primetime, CNN set the pace with 3.4 million total viewers, up 44% from the corresponding night in 2004, with nearly 1.3 million adults 25 to 54 demo, a 134% jump from 547,000.
Fox News was second with 3.3 million total viewers, 42% more than the 2.34 million that tuned in the second primetime period of the DNC four years ago. Included in that total were 823,000 of the news demo, marking an 8% increase from 763,000 during the DNC that nominated John Kerry as the party’s presidential candidate.
MSNBC rang up 42% amelioration among total primetime viewers to 1.99 million from 1.40 million, with the news demo advancing 55% to 785,000 from 506,000.
However, CNN and MSNBC saw their primetime and demo numbers decline from the first night of this year’s DNC. CNN slipped 8% from 3.7 million total viewers on Aug. 25 and 6% from 1.37 million adults 25 to 54. For its part, MSNBC was down 7% in both measures, night to night,: from 2.15 million persons 2+ and 847,000 among the news set.
Conversely, Fox News improved its metrics, growing 10% from a 3.02 million average audience on Monday night, and 6% from 776,000 with the aforementioned age group.
