The viewership distortion - Obama STILL wins against McPalin

[BumRushDaShow]

As I noted in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6962183

the nonsensical "we won" from the repukes and lunatic-fringe biased M$M generally seeks to compare applies to oranges, but won't put the actual figures out there for review.

According to Hollywood Reporter writer James Hibberd:

From this (repost of his article): http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv/browse_thread/thread/e6f2ce87e747c41b
And this (repost of his article): http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/09/palin-ratings-s.html
And this (repost of his article): http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/09/mccain-rating-1.html

Obama viewers
Obama Nielsen viewers = 38.4 million
Obama PBS viewers = 3.5 million

Total Obama viewers: 41.9 million

McCain viewers
McCain Nielsen viewers = 38.9 million
McCain PBS viewers = 2.7 million

Total McCain viewers = 41.6 million

Palin viewers
Palin Nielsen viewers = 37.2 million
Palin PBS viewers = 3.2 million

Total Palin viewers: 40.4 million

To quote PE --> "Don't believe the hype."

[ingac70]

1. I watched on C-SPAN

and those viewers don't get counted at all.

[sandnsea]

7. Lots of us did, and online

like the poster below stated. Then there's BET and I wonder about Telemundo and Latino television too. I'd bet a lot of Obama viewers weren't counted at all. I wonder if this is another way the polls get skewed. I wonder if they don't even poll some neighborhoods because they're spanish speaking or very low voter registration.

[Union Thug]

8. CSPAN here, as well. The numbers don't seem to mean a lot. n/t

[Frances]

12. I listened to CSpan streaming online until a DUer posted

a link to a site where I actually watched Obama online

I expect a lot more Obama supporters participated online than did McCain supporters

Edited for typos

[bluestateguy]

2. Was BET counted?

They covered Obama, but not the RNC. If they were not counted, you can add a few more hundred thousand.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. I think all of the "commercial" cable channels (like BET) are counted by Nielsen

but trying to get those figures probably requires someone in the TV media to post them or a person needs a subscription with Nielsen to view the figures.

Nielsen doesn't do "non-commercial" ("publicly-funded") tracking because Nielsen's purpose in life is to help for-profit, commercially-funded network/cable station owners to set rates for advertising based on viewership.

[backscatter712]

3. K&R!!!

Gotta love how the fascist media cooks their numbers.

[melody]

4. Exactly. Thank you. n/t

[asdjrocky]

5. And let's not forget people like my daughter.

Her, and her room mate live in a dorm room with no TV. Her, and most of her friends in college, watched the Michelle and Obama speech online.

[BumRushDaShow]

21. But here is where there is an issue because Nielsen DOES have a "NetRatings" service

See this: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/

Ironically, my now 78 yo mother had actually been selected to be a participant in their pilot back in 2001 and she doesn't have (nor does she want) a computer. She handed me the invite letter and said "Here, take it". :rofl:

So they DO track this and as of 2006, they were supposed to begin incorporating those numbers into the live TV viewer tallies - but I think only for "internal" corporate use. If you look at the link, you'll see their press releases about the Olympics streaming coverage, but nothing yet about the conventions. So that is something to look at as soon as those numbers are posted.

[1corona4u]

6. I was wondering when they would include PBS..

because that's where I watched it, but have they said anything about CSPAN? Is there anyway to track the viewers there?

[BumRushDaShow]

20. Since CSPAN is not "commercially funded"

they don't really need to track it. CSPAN is "paid for" by the cable companies and runs no product advertising, and thus would have no need for data from a Nielsen to use to set ad rates based on number of viewers. I wouldn't be surprised that with the people meters, Nielsen actually does have the numbers, but doesn't crunch them for public consumption.

[raebrek]

9. what were Senator Biden's number? n/t

[BumRushDaShow]

16. As a quickie response

according to this: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/09/04/palins-tv-audience-over-bidens-clintons-just-below-obamas/4933
And this: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080904/NEWS/80904074/1006

Biden had 24 million per Nielsen. Hillary had 26 million per Nielsen. I haven't found PBS numbers yet...

[raebrek]

30. Thank you. n/t

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. These numbers discount the fact that the networks awarded much more coverage of the RNC

than the DNC.

[Solomon]

11. Jeez. The whole thing is a mirage. All the numbers are because

of Obama. It doesn't matter who got the most viewers, it's all because of Obama.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6962183

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Very true.

Because if he weren't running, not too many people would be as excited as they are... I would note that the 2006 election seemed to be a prediction for what was to come with the sheeple starting to wake up and pay attention, so there definitely would have been an upward bump in any case, over the lackluster 2004 election...

[NorthCarolina]

15. I think there was likely a large number of Dems who watched McPalin

whereas the Repugs largely avoided watching Obama, opting instead to catch segments of it on the Fox wrapup.

[FrenchieCat]

17. The 10 million that Obama raised while Palin was speaking is a hint.....

that the viewership may have been as high 10 to 1, Obama supporters watching the RNC's Nonsense.

[Cha]

29. So many people came up to me today at work

to get my reaction on palin who, in their opinion, didn't make the grade as someone who could be the president of the United States.

I would mention with glee that Obama and Biden raised $10 Million as the result of her speech that managed to dismiss Community Organizing and showing no respect whatsoever, lied with ease wherever it suited her puppose.

Some peeps said.."I know!:D" and others were thrilled to get the news:)

[eshfemme]

18. Besides the TV watchers and online stream viewers, there are also the people who caught it later on

with online videos and replays. So we can probably safely say that Obama's viewership drove up the McCain-Palin viewership and it's most likely McCain and Palin came up short compared to Obama's "American Promise" speech.

This is just some more proof that the "traditional" way of doing things amongst the media is just outdated and out of touch with what the world is doing. The more they keep clinging to the same old crap like the poll numbers and Nielsen ratings without even doing any sort of critical thinking about how they're using them, the more the MSM makes themselves irrelevant. This is why TV viewership is down overall. Because the Internet--thanks to Al Gore-- is far more interesting and illuminating a device than the TV will be.

PS Al Gore DID help to invent the Internet in that he strongly pushed for funding and legislation for projects like ARPANET, which led to the evolution of the Internet. Al Gore's always been on the cutting edge-- I believe he's an advisor to Google and is serving on Apple's board.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. Thanks for the name "American Promise"

I was trying to find if it were named something other than "Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech"! :hi:

[eshfemme]

28. Well... it's my unofficial name... I don't even know if Barack Obama gives his speeches names.

But since the "American Promise" was basically the theme of that speech, I felt it appropriate. The only thing is that the name tends to glide over the concrete things he wants to do and I really hate how people rave over the "details" of McCain's speeches and don't go into obama's speech details.

[ContinentalOp]

19. Might as well add in these:

406,854: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ato7BtisXzE
240,801: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ0gxF869NE
498,836: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZCrIeRkMhA

That's at least 1,146,491 just on youtube.

For McCain's speech you have
13,172: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAWBPVzNCkg
30,374: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05kJnEZ3N6o
3,643: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7FH_QRYKEY

I can't really find any better ones. He gets a total of 47,189.


That would bring their overall totals to:
Obama: 43 million
McCain: 41.6 million

[BumRushDaShow]

22. Cool and thanks!

:hi:

Honkin' huge difference in the online speech views! :rofl:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

23. What isn't being taken account is the NFL game on NBC, which ended Just before McCrash spoke. That

probably wrangled in Millions of viewers who normally wouldn't be watching.

[BumRushDaShow]

25. I think one of the links I saw said

that there were something like 13.7 (?) million viewers of the Giants-Redskins game, which I understand ended around 10ish.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

27. That is a huge amount of viewers.

[Phredicles]

26. A radio report I heard implied as much (they said McCrash "got a boost"

from the game).

I watched Obama's speech on C-Span. As for the wrinkly old dude and the holy nazi babe, I was content to wait for Messers Stewart and Colbert to filter it into palatable little bits for me.

[quantass]

31. Tons of Canadians like me were watching too.