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Opinion: Obama’s healthcare news conference draws 24.7 million viewers

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President Obama was just about everywhere on prime-time TV Wednesday.

The president’s healthcare news conference drew 24.7 million TV viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Many major networks carried the live broadcast, including ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN.

But Fox deferred its coverage to the Fox News Channel, electing to air ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ on its flagship channel. It wasn’t the first time the network chose not to show an Obama prime-time news conference.

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Last April, Fox turned out to have made the right call, ratings-wise. Its TV drama ‘Lie to Me,’ which ran alongside Obama’s prime-time event, bested NBC’s coverage of the speech.

Last night’s numbers for the reality dance show have yet to surface.

Wednesday’s news conference may have topped April’s 19 million or so viewers, but it doesn’t begin to touch the 50 million from his first prime-time speech in February.

The conference was also live-streamed on video website Hulu and the White House site, which tied in with Facebook. The White House and Hulu have yet to release online viewership numbers.

As usual, The Ticket also published a complete transcript here.

-- Mark Milian

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