Obama's State of the Union manages to hold Americans' attention despite its length [Corrected]
The television ratings for President Obama's State of the Union addresses are in, and they look pretty comparable to previous speeches.
We can't yet accurately benchmark the numbers for Wednesday night's address against the ones from his Dec. 1 speech about Afghanistan. Ratings for the news networks haven't been reported yet.
Wednesday's speech drew an average of 30.69 million viewers between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern among the major networks -- ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, according to Nielsen.
Obama's speech on Afghanistan snagged 40.77 million viewers, with 30.84 million tuning in on the major networks. Of course, even that's not a good point of comparison because the Afghanistan speech was only 30 minutes long, versus Wednesday's State of the Union, which exceeded an hour.
Fox touted the highest viewership on Wednesday with 9.74 million. According to a Public Policy Polling survey, Fox News Channel ranked as the most trusted source for TV news and the only network drawing more people saying they trusted the station than distrusted it.
ABC came in second in those ratings Wednesday with 7.64 million. NBC was in third with 7.15 million. And CBS trailed with 6.16 million -- all ratings from Nielsen.
Of course, none could compare to what Fox was showing the hour before Obama's address. "American Idol" beat out the top three networks' combined ratings for the State of the Union -- but CBS inevitably puts them a few million over the pop-music reality show.
[Corrected, 3:28 p.m.: These numbers are the Fast Affiliate ratings, which do not take West Coast viewers of the State of the Union into account. In aggregate, 48 million people watched Obama’s speech, according to Nielsen.]
-- Mark Milian
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Photo: A man watches a live broadcast of President Obama's State of the Union address from Washington, D.C. Credit: Associated Press
Harry Reid almost fell asleep and if I wasn't ironing so would I. The most boring hour of lashing out at everyone but himself. He will learn he can't insult us on a regular basis and be reelected.
Posted by: Lee Hauser | January 28, 2010 at 02:29 PM
Why do they continue having Reid and Pelosi behind the President? I know they have the top seats on the Hill; that's technically it. But, this can't be a good image going forward. Obama should make THIS particular bipartisan decision: move these clowns to the back of the room!
Pelosi and Reid probably get their year's worth of exercise during Obama's speeches.. up and down, up and down and all around... Maybe it's my Republicanism, but I just can't take this Administration seriously. It just seems it's all a big lousy joke (that will end up snaking its way into my wallet...
Posted by: Anusia | January 29, 2010 at 03:43 PM