Palin almost matches Obama in attracting TV viewers to her speech

Washington, Sept.5 : Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin almost managed to overhaul Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in terms of attracting the number of television viewers to hear her acceptance speech on Wednesday night at the party's convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Palin drew 37 million viewers, just 1.1 million viewers shy of Obama's record-breaking speech in Denver on August 28, according to recent Nielsen Media Research ratings.

The Fox News Channel garnered the biggest audience during the Palin speech. FOX News drew 9.2 million viewers from 10 to 11:15 p.m., compared with NBC with 7.7 million viewers, CNN, which had 6.2 million viewers, ABC with 5.9 million, CBS with 4.6 million and MSNBC with 3.4 million.

Women viewers outnumbered men on Wednesday night, 19.5 million to 16.4 million, consistent with the pattern since last week. On day three of the Democratic convention, when Joe Biden accepted the nomination for vice president and Bill Clinton stirred the audience at Pepsi Center, 12 million adult women watched compared to 9.7 million adult men.

During day one of the Democratic convention, Michelle Obama garnered 22 million total viewers, while Sen. Hillary Clinton got 26 million viewers the next night, and on day three, Biden had 24 million viewers.

Meanwhile, FOX News' coverage of Tuesday's speeches surpassed all others, broadcast or cable, according to Nielsen, with 6.2 million viewers in the 10 p.m. ET hour. That was more than NBC, which averaged 4.5 million viewers; CNN, which averaged 3.2 million viewers; ABC with 3.1 million viewers; CBS with 2.9 million and MSNBC with 1.6 million viewers for its 10 p.m. coverage on Tuesday.

Overall RNC viewership Tuesday night - 21.5 million - was about 4 million fewer than watched last Tuesday's Democratic National Convention, which featured Hillary Clinton.

ANI