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Opinion: More than elsewhere, St. Louis folks watched the McCain/Obama debate

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Missouri has not been widely viewed as a top-tier battleground state in the presidential race -- it’s competitive, as usual, but it would surprise most pundits if it does not ultimately land in John McCain’s column.

Recent polls have shown some tightening, though, so perhaps that’s a reason preliminary Nielsen Co. ratings for the nation’s top metropolitan areas found the St. Louis market with the largest TV audience for Friday night’s debate.

Nielsen reported that a majority of households with televisions in and around the city -- 52.1% -- were tuned to the McCain/Barack Obama faceoff.

The ‘share’ figure was even more impressive -- among all TVs in use as the debate aired, 82% in the St. Louis area had it on. That was far and away the highest such number in the major markets. Soon, St. Louis will host one of the debates, too.

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The area where the debate attracted the smallest audience? McCain’s backyard.

The household rating for the Phoenix/Prescott market was 24.8% (with a 47% share), according to the preliminary report.

Next to last: Los Angeles.

In both of these latter cases, viewership no doubt was lower than in many other places because the debate started at 6 p.m. local time.

Overall, in 55 of the nation’s top 56 markets (Houston was excluded because of disarray caused by Hurricane Ike), the debate’s rating was 33.2% -- impressive for a Friday night.

The report can be perused here. Nielsen’s promises its complete numbers on Monday.

-- Don Frederick

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