Ok, that’s not true (go ask Michael Huffington about his 1994 U.S. Senate race) maybe it should be… “Yes, Virginia you can buy people’s attention.” Barack Obama hit the airwaves last night with a 30 minute infomercial on CBS, NBC, FOX, Univision, BET, MSNBC and TV One. The preliminary national television ratings are showing that about 30 million people saw the telecast.
Well, that depends which industry trades you saw this morning. Broadcasting & Cable puts the number at 26 million– leaving out the 3.6 million viewers of Univision. I guess because Spanish language television doesn’t matter?! The Hollywood Reporter does the same thing, no mention of the Univision delivery. TV Week doesn’t even quote the preliminary national ratings, they go local and then compare it to the Democratic National Convention. Come on people, this was huge. Just say it– for about $3 million and using 7 networks, Obama was able to get about the same sized audience as last May’s American Idol finale. You want to get people’s attention, interrupt their primetime viewing.
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Just a follow up with FINAL Nielsen ratings for October 29th.
The Obama infomerical ended up with 33.7 million viewers across all seven networks it aired on:
25.7 million total from CBS, NBC, and Fox.
3.5 million from Univision
4.5 million total from MSNBC, BET, and TVOne.