More than 71 million people tuned in for President-elect
Barack Obama’s historic win, which also represented a major triumph for cable
television and news Web sites, as the record-setting figures released on Wednesday
by Nielsen Media Research outnumbered viewers for President George W. Bush’s 2004
victory.
Web sites belonging to MSNBC, CNN and ABC smashed records on
Tuesday, while Yahoo! News, which registered the highest number of viewers, saw
an 80 percent increase in traffic compared to the 2004 campaign.
Audience results came as an appropriate finale for a political
campaign season that was actually shocking taking into account the force of
public awareness, which concentrated on debates, conventions, primary nights,
political spoofs and, evidently, Barack Obama’s prime-time campaign
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Consistent with Nielsen’s preliminary estimates, ABC News
managed to lure most viewers during prime-time. Nevertheless, if we consider
coverage until 12:30 a.m. EST, which featured John McCain’s concession speech,
as well as the Democratic presidential nominee’s appearance in Chicago, CNN was the most
watched network.
The audience results represent an unprecedented success for
CNN, as it showed that a cable network was able to outshine major broadcasters
during a momentous event.
ABC drew 13.1 million viewers during the prime-time hours (8
to 11 p.m.), while CNN registered 12.3 million viewers. NBC had 12 million
viewers, followed by Fox with 9 million viewers, CBS with 7.8 million viewers,
MSNBC with 5.9 million viewers, the Fox broadcast network 5 million viewers and
the Spanish-language Univision 4.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
ABC remained behind NBC during the 2000 and 2004 Election
Nights, but managed to surpass its competitor on Tuesday, which represented a
great accomplishment for the network. In addition, Fox News and MSNBC saw their
best audience results ever in the key 25-to-54-year-old news demographic.
ABC News President David Westin explained that the network
succeeded in its attempt to cover the entire presidential campaign, The
Associated Press reported.
ABC News missed its anchor, Peter Jennings, who died after a
battle with lung cancer some three years ago, while NBC had to do without
analyst Tim Russert, who died of a heart attack this year.
Charles Gibson took the lead of ABC’s election coverage,
while NBC and CBS were anchored by Brian Williams and Katie Couric,
respectively.
Those interested were also able to watch the conclusion of
the presidential chase on BBC America’s British filters, which lured 224,000
prime-time viewers, CNBC, whose financial pros drew 391,000 viewers, as well as
BET and TV One, which registered together a total of 526,000 viewers.
The record-breaking interest was reflected in a frenzy for souvenir newspapers that proclaimed Obama the next president, with Americans forming long lines Wednesday to buy copies. But many returned disappointed after the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune and other papers sold out early despite dramatically increasing their press runs.
The Chicago Tribune, Obama's hometown newspaper, sold out of an extra 200,000 papers, and was even selling framed copies of its front page for 99 dollars. The New York Times printed an extra 50,000 copies and the Washington Post an additional 150,000 copies of a special edition. USA Today was to print an extra 500,000 copies. Many other newspapers also printed commemorative editions.
"This is a physical record of history being made," said Robert de la Madrid, who had tried five different locations before finally landing copies of the Los Angeles Times at the paper's headquarters.
"As soon as you close the computer screen, that image is gone. And you can't frame the Internet," he said.
The internet still had an important role to play, however, as dozens of the historic newspapers were offered for sale on listings sites such as Craigslist and eBay - where a single copy of the New York Times was up for auction at $400.
