Posted on 04/30/2009 8:31:08 PM PDT by smokingfrog
President Obama took to the airwaves at 8pm, but FOX was the lone hold out of the four major broadcasters, so people will be very interested to see how Lie to Me does up against the Obama’s press conference. People will also be interested in seeing how Obama’s ratings do. He’s been a ratings powerhouse, though his ratings have been sliding a little (whose haven’t?!). Obama’s first press conference in February averaged over 49.5 million viewers between the broadcast and cable nets that aired it, but a subsequent conference in late March averaged just over 40 million.
Update 4: James Hibberd is reporting that between broadcast and cable the Obama press conference averaged 28.8 million viewers, a 29% drop from his last press conference. Fox News had the most viewers (more than CBS, ABC or NBC). Here is the information for the cable news networks.
Update 3: Full data table now included below.
Update 2: President Obama’s news conference averaged 22.02 million viewers across ABC, NBC, CBS and Univision, and a 6.0 rating among adults 18-49. Lie to Me averaged a 2.4/7 (rating/share) with adults 18-49, and 7.88 million viewers. The 100th episode of Lost averaged a 3.9/10 with adults 18-49 and 8.81 million viewers overall.
As for the president’s news conference more people watched on NBC overall, and ABC and NBC tied in the 18-49 demo, with ABC winning with adults 18-34. I’ll post the full data table shortly.
(Excerpt) Read more at tvbythenumbers.com ...
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 8:00 | FOX | Lie to Me | 2.4/7 | 2.1/7 | 7.88 |
| CW | America’s Next Top Model | 1.8/6 | 2.1/7 | 4.00 | |
| ABC | President Obama Press Conference | 1.6/5 | 1.4/5 | 6.12 | |
| CBS | President Obama Press Conference | 1.5/5 | 0.9/3 | 6.01 | |
| NBC | President Obama Press Conference | 1.6/5 | 1.1/4 | 6.68 | |
| UNI | Conferencia de Prensa: Barack Obama | 1.3/4 | 1.3/4 | 3.224 | |
| 9:00 | FOX | American Idol | 7.5/19 | 5.5/15 | 21.85 |
| ABC | Lost | 3.9/10 | 3.7/10 | 8.81 | |
| CBS | Criminal Minds | 3.3/8 | 2.1/6 | 13.27 | |
| UNI | Mañana Es Para Siempre | 2.0/5 | 2.0/6 | 4.64 | |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU (R) | 1.3/3 | 1.0/3 | 4.81 | |
| CW | 90210 (R) | 0.6/1 | 0.7/2 | 1.25 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI:NY | 3.2/9 | 2.3/7 | 12.47 |
| NBC | Law & Order | 2.2/6 | 1.7/5 | 7.69 | |
| ABC | The Unusuals | 1.7/5 | 1.4/4 | 5.08 | |
| UNI | Don Francisco Presenta | 1.2/3 | 1.2/3 | 3.02 | |
Shows are sorted by Adults 18-49 rating in each time slot.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
For more information see Numbers 101.
Every time I have a chance to turn on FOX I see Obama, and of course if he’s on FOX he’s on all the other news.
It’s the same yucky feeling I get when I turn on FOX and see Geraldo.
I watched “Lie to Me” for the first time last night!
No, really! The TV drama, not the man impersonating a U.S. President!
(That show’s pretty hard to follow, but at least it doesn’t make me sick to my stomach...)
From tvbythenumbers.com:
Wednesday night’s primetime press conference to mark Barack Obama’s 100th day in office was viewed by 28.8 million people, according Nielsen.
That’s a 29% drop from the president’s last press conference on March 24.
The telecast was watched on 10 TV networks with Fox News drawing the most viewers.
At the current rate....I’ll predict that the President waits until the 4th of July week to do the next press conference. But the numbers will likely slip down into the 19 million range. If I were Fox....I’d prepare for some 5-star show for the evening and really go after the big numbers. Let ABC, NBC, and CBS...lose even more money.
ABC allowed the producer of their preempted show “Better Off Ted” to take a swipe back at Obama for messing up their schedule and the revenue loss. A very funny fake commercial of protest. Also takes a dig at GE, which is to say NBC.
“Veridian Dynamics responds to President Obama’s request for free air time for his press conference on Wednesday, April 29, 2009.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpUPW4FL6Mo
That’s pretty funny.
Obama’s ratings slide: press conference down 29%
http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/04/obama-press-conference-draws-288-million-viewers.html
I purposely DO NOT watch him in order for the ratings to slide. We all should boycott all of his bloviating. He is a narcissist and feeds off of the limelight. You thought Bill Clinton was bad, this man is worse.
At this rate, hopefully he'll be less popular than George Bush in about 2 more months.
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