Obama's speech: most popularly televiewed political convention

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-30 10:46

NEW YORK -- Barack Obama's audience for his acceptance speech likely topped 40 million people, and the Democratic gathering that nominated him was a more popular television event than any other political convention in history.

Democratic presidential nominee US Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) waves as he addresses the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado August 28, 2008. [Agencies]

More people watched Obama speak from a packed stadium in Denver on Thursday than watched the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year, Nielsen Media Research said Friday.

His TV audience nearly doubled the amount of people who watched John Kerry accept the Democratic nomination to run against President Bush four years ago. Kerry's speech was seen by a little more than 20 million people; Bush's acceptance speech to GOP delegates had 27.6 million viewers.

Through four days, the Democratic convention was seen in an average of 22.5 million households. No other convention, Republican or Democratic, had been seen in as many homes since Nielsen began keeping these records for the Kennedy-Nixon campaign in 1960. There weren't enough television sets in American homes to have possibly beaten this record in years before that.

This year's nomination fight was another epic battle, between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Even though it was decided before the convention, viewers apparently were drawn to the historic nature of the first black man nominated as a major party presidential candidate.

Nielsen said that 38.4 million people watched Obama's speech as it was carried live by 10 commercial networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo.

Obama's speech was the fifth-highest-rated, non-sports event watched by blacks in the last 11 years. A 30th anniversary Michael Jackson special on CBS in 2001 was on top.

The acceptance speech was a particular triumph for CNN, which clearly beat the three big broadcasters head-to-head on a news event for the first time ever. An estimated 8.1 million people watched on CNN Thursday.

The Republican convention begins Monday in St. Paul, Minn. Republican candidate John McCain sought to take away some of the attention from his rival on Friday by selecting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.