Ratings Down for McCain-Obama Debate

It's not the surprising to find out that many Americans have other things to do on Friday nights in the Fall:

After predictions that these Obama-McCain debates would earn record audiences in the 80-100 million range, the “overnights” from the five broadcast networks are in — and at least where they are concerned, the viewership for last night’s debate was surprisingly low.

As I read the raw numbers, there were somewhere between 20-22 million households tuned in to the debate across the four networks that showed it (CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox). That means perhaps 30 million people tuned in, which would be a colossal audience for a single show on a single network, but across all four, only adds up to something like 28 percent of the overall television audience. ABC did the best, but last week, one of the lowest-rated weeks in the history of prime time, the number-one show was a football game, and it alone scored 22 million viewers.

Now, these numbers don’t include the cable news networks or PBS, which have scored record ratings this year during these events; it is to be expected that as many as 20 million people will have tuned in to CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, which would bring the total viewership north of 50 million. That’s big, to be sure, but nowhere near the size of the audience in 2004, when the first Bush-Kerry debate scored 62 million.

This may also explain some of the viewer polls that were taken right after the debate showing Obama with a win. Polling on Friday nights and weekends is notoriously suspicious because Republicans tend to be out doing things with and for their families while Democrats tend to be at home. Could it be that more Democrats watched last night because Republicans were off doing other things? I know I was.