| Wednesday, June 29, 2005 |
| Not exactly must-see TV |
The ratings are in for Dubya's primetime speech last night, and they ain't good. Keith Olbermann just reported that only about 22 million people tuned in to the speech -- down from the 38 million who watched the State of the Union -- and this despite a full court press to air the speech live by the reluctant networks. That's bad even for a night of summer reruns. (22 out of 300 or so million people? damn...)
The upshot is, according to Michael Wolffe of TIME Magazine, also via "Countdown," was that the speech was mostly viewed by Bush's fans (and by eye rolling reporters and bloggers...) That's borne out by the ratings: Fox dominated, of course, since they are the home of the Bush cult. CNN and MSNBC got pasted (most of their viewers probably wouldn't have bought into Bush's storyline anyway...)
According to TVNewer:
- FNC: Number one, it goes without saying. The pre-show coverage from 7:55 to 8:02pm attracted 2,293,000 viewers; the speech itself averaged 3,410,000; and the Brit Hume post-game show delivered 3,266,000. At 9pm, Hannity & Colmes held onto 2,332,000 viewers; and Greta stayed strong at 10pm with 2,507,000. The 11pm speech replay delivered 1,162,000.
- CNN: Anderson Cooper averaged 547,000 viewers; the speech coverage, from 8 to 8:43pm, averaged 917,000; a few more viewers tuned in for the last quarter-hour, with 988,000 between 8:43 and 9pm. Larry King delivered 1,090,000, and NewsNight averaged 885,000. The 11pm speech replay averaged 539,000.
- MSNBC: The Hardball Church Tour averaged 267,000 viewers. The speech itself, from 8:02 to 8:30pm, delivered 316,000. More viewers tuned in for the post-game show: Chris Matthews attracted 384,000 viewers between 8:30 and 9pm. (For some strange Nielsen reason, that time period also includes two minutes at the top of the 8pm hour.) The 9pm Hardball held onto 258,000, and Scarborough Country had 312,000. The 11pm reair did 291,000.
- HLN: Nancy Grace ignored the President and delivered a big 722,000 in the 8pm hour. (She had 407,000 during the 10pm replay.)
- Also: Drudge says CBS delivered 5.8 million viewers during Bush's speech, while NBC had 5.3 and ABC had 5.0... |
posted by JReid @ 8:23 PM   |
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