Update: The overnight total for the election night TV viewership was a record 71.5 million.
| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 13.63 | 13.10 | 8.00 | 5.26 | 4.34 | 2.64 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 4.7/10 | 4.8/10 | 2.6/5 | 2.3/5 | 1.9/4 | 1.3/3 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 4.0/9 | 4.5/10 | 2.0/4 | 2.5/6 | 1.9/4 | 1.8/4 |
Forty four million plus on average watched the election coverage on the above mentioned broadcast networks. I think it's best to hold off on comparing previous years until the cable news numbers are factored in as well. But as mentioned in an earlier post, with the election not being very close and McCain conceding fairly early, it should be no surprise if there were fewer viewers than in 2004. It was a very historic night, but it just lacked any drama around "who's gonna win!?"
ABC bettered NBC by roughly a half million people on average, but NBC narrowly defeated ABC among 18-49 year olds, and had an even wider margin of victory among 18-34 year olds. CBS was a distant third place with 8 million on average and equally far behind in the age demographics. Fox trailed CBS, but it may well be that the Fox News Channel beat the Fox broadcast network. We'll find out later, along with results for CNN, MSNBC, etc. If some of the early metered market data holds up in the finals, both CNN and Fox News will have will have outpaced CBS.
Oh yeah, and the CW ran 90210 and Privileged...
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | NBC | NBC News Election Night 2008 | 13.05 | 4.4/10 | 3.8/9 |
| ABC | ABC News - Vote 2008 | 12.87 | 4.2/9 | 3.5/8 | |
| CBS | Campaign '08: Election Night | 8.19 | 2.5/5 | 1.9/4 | |
| FOX | You Decide 2008 | 5.25 | 2.2/5 | 2.6/6 | |
| UNI | Destino 2008: Noche de Elecciones | 4.51 | 1.9/4 | 1.9/5 | |
| CW | 90210 | 3.02 | 1.4/3 | 2.0/5 | |
| 9:00 | ABC | ABC News - Vote 2008 | 14.51 | 5.0/10 | 4.2/9 |
| NBC | NBC News Election Night 2008 | 13.81 | 5.1/10 | 4.8/10 | |
| CBS | Campaign '08: Election Night | 8.32 | 2.7/5 | 2.1/5 | |
| FOX | You Decide 2008 | 5.28 | 2.3/5 | 2.4/5 | |
| UNI | Destino 2008: Noche de Elecciones | 4.68 | 2.0/4 | 2.1/4 | |
| CW | Privileged | 2.26 | 1.1/2 | 1.5/3 | |
| 10:00 | ABC | ABC News - Vote 2008 | 13.51 | 5.0/11 | 4.4/10 |
| NBC | NBC News Election Night 2008 | 12.44 | 4.8/10 | 4.8/10 | |
| CBS | Campaign '08: Election Night | 7.50 | 2.4/5 | 2.1/5 | |
| UNI | Destino 2008: Noche de Elecciones | 3.84 | 1.7/4 | 1.8/4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 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.
Great Numbers for ABC.
Also, THE CW had a prett good night also.
wow.. CBS skews really really old
And I think the finals will tell a diferent story.. there was a lot of zapping and flipping channels last night.
I find it interesting that CBS has so many solid regular viewers (CSI’s, CM, NCIS, WAT, even 60 Minutes) who apparently prefer to get their news elsewhere?
clutz, Couric doesn’t match their demo.
Yeah, the old people doesnt like Couric.
CBS is for old people. no one young watches it.
Viewers really make it a point to ignore Katie Couric. No one watches her on the Evening News and now they avoided her during her first presidential election coverage on CBS! They have to let her go ASAP! They can’t withstand anymore record low numbers for their news division because of her.
Great job to ABC News though. I was tuned into them all night, and hated that I had to watch my local news programming at 11, which never happens. I waited patiently until ABC returned at 11:35pm. Charlie, Diane and George were like comfort food last night.
Errol, the local news cutting in at 11 was so annoying. Especially since it was right when ABC was about to announce that Obama won. The coverage on my local ABC was no where near as good. And we had to wait until 12 for it to go back to national coverage.
CBS had similar problems with no one watching Dan Rather.
Rather was being watched, but not with the same amount of viewers as ABC and NBC. I believe at that time ABC/NBC were averaging 8 or 9 million viewers each night, to Dan’s 7 million. Katie is just under 6 million right now. That’s a problem.
Is Katie Couric really that off-putting to people?
How could she have gotten so out of touch with TV viewers when she famously anchored the “Today” show for so many years?
I would have watched CBS’ election coverage last night if their HD coverage had been any good…
Those side pillars that took up half the screen on the side was such a stupid idea and was the reason I changed the channel.
I watched CNN HD instead.
It’s good to see CBS kicked down every once in a while.
I didn’t know that CBS has a news division! Once Walter Cronkite left, CBS News went down the tubes.
Alex, I don’t know about Katie Couric, but there are definitely people who are very popular in more talk show type settings, who can’t make it in news. There is a local anchor here who spent years on a local Entertainment Tonight type show before moving on to the evening news. Personally, I cannot watch her on the news. She just doesn’t fit the part.
ABC NEWS WAS THE BEST IN ELECTION COVERAGE FROM 8:00 PM TIL 2:00 AM EST..THEY HAD ALL THE NEWS PERSONALITIES FROM EVERY ABC NEWS SHOW…CHARLIE GIBSON AND DIANE SAWYER, GREAT JOB AND COVERAGE. THANKS FROM ABC AFFILATE WCVB CHANNEL 5 BOSTON.
I agree.. ABC NEWS was the best, second was CNN.
Anybody have in numbers for Indecision 2008?
Crash, we may very well see those numbers in a press release, but they won’t make the threshold of the cable show data we get on a regular basis.