The debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, which took place Thursday night, was seen by approximately 70 million people. Nielsen, responsible for keeping score of viewers, reported an exact 69.989 million viewers, making Thursday’s debate occupy second place of the most viewed presidential or vice-presidential debate in the history of the US.

Nielsen started analyzing the ratings for debates back in 1976 and the biggest ratings were registered back in October 1980, when approximately 80 million people saw the debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. That record is still standing today, but the recent registered ratings prove that there is power to break that record.

The debate took place in St. Louis, which occupied second place for the percentage of people watching after Baltimore. The debate between the two vice-presidential candidates was also made popular by being broadcasted through ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telefutura, Telemundo, BBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, MSNBC and PBS. Among all of the stations, transmitting the debate ABC seems to have had the most viewers, approximately 13 million.

Interestingly enough, Nielsen Media Research reports that the debate between Palin and Biden had bigger ratings that the debate between presidential candidates Obama and McCain. Nielsen reports that approximately 17 million more people watched the debate between the vice-presidential candidates.

A reason for this might be that the two are getting incredible media coverage, being “the new” in the race for the White House. People and the media must get to know them better, thus creating some sort of hype that will continue to power up ratings.