quinta-feira, 30 de outubro de 2008

Political Prime-Time

“The combined overall household rating for Senator Barack Obama’s Wednesday night infomercial, in the top 56 local television markets where Nielsen maintains electronic TV meters, was 21.7,” the fine folks at Nielsen tell us.

James Hibbard of the Hollywood Reporter thinks that qualifies as a blockbuster: “If Barack Obama fails to win the election, perhaps the networks should hire him to entertain viewers on Wednesday nights,” he writes. “Obama’s 30-minute primetime infomercial was seen by 33.6 million viewers across seven networks — including CBS, NBC, Fox, Univision, MSNBC, BET and TV One. That’s 70% more people than watched the conclusion of the World Series last night on Fox (19.8 million).”

Taegan Goddard provides some historical context: “In contrast, the last presidential candidate to air a paid simulcast was Ross Perot in 1996, was seen by 16.8% of households. However, the ad was seen by fewer households than watched the presidential debates. The three debates were seen by 34.7%, 42% and 38.3% of households in these top markets, respectively.”

“The pundits on the cable nets may try to discount the power of the broadcast,” add Jonathan Singer at MyDD. “However, Obama was not trying to convince the Beltway cognoscenti with his event — he was trying to reach voters who might otherwise not have been reached. So the fact that what appears to have been tens of millions of people tuned in last night to a program with Oscar-like production values laying out a cogent case for why Barack Obama should be elected the next President of the United States cannot be a bad thing for the Obama campaign.”

Indeed — if only the Phillies and Rays had had equal production values …

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