Academic

Candidates In Our Living Rooms: Nielsen Report Shows High Convention Viewership

By Dan Filler

The Nielsen Company - those old-tech folks who track TV viewership - has just released a report analyzing the extent to which Americans watched the Democratic and Republican conventions.  Here's the punch line: a ton of folks tuned in.  Specifically, almost 65% of all households - over 73 million homes in all - tuned into at least one of the two conventions.  Nielsen projects that something like 120 million actual human beings watched at least one convention.  Remarkably, most of those folks watched part of both conventions.

There was a clear age skew in viewership.  63% of those 55 years and older watched at least one convention; only24% of those in the 18-24 range did so. There is probably at least a loose correlation between viewership and voting - so this has to be seen as bad news for Obama.  In another non-shocker, those earning over $100,000 yearly watched the conventions at the highest levels - and preferred the McCain Show - with a steep dropoff below that economic line.  Another data point that won't suprise anyone: millions more people watched Sarah Palin's speech than Biden's.   

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, African-Americans had the highest viewership rates for the DNC fete among any race or ethnicity category studied: 63% watched it, compared to 48% of whites, 43% of Latinos, and 42% of Other.  (No wonder everyone is afraid of being othered!)  All groups except whites watched the DNC in larger numbers than the RNC.  By a hair, white viewers preferred the Republican ball.  Putting together the data in a way Nielsen may not have, taking into account existing income disparities by race, it suggests that people of color with lower incomes were substantially more likely to have watched the conventions than whites at similar income levels. 

One big unanswered question - something pretty important to the Obama campaign - is the degree to which younger audiences watched via the Internet.  Nielsen didn't study the Web (or CSPAN - one of the networks I watched).  For many young people, and even older folks like me, YouTube has largely eliminated the need to contort one's own schedule to the rest of the world.  (At the same time, it's made TV - and consequently, Nielsen - less relevant.) 

On balance, I'm buoyed by the fact that so many people were willing to subject themselves to fairly long, reasonably dull, convention speeches.  What these folks will do with this information is anyone's guess.  And the folks who are guessing with their money are leaning ever-so-slightly toward Obama.

H/T: Kos

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on September 22, 2008 (boomark / email).