Barack Obama patently isn't the only "rock star" in presidential political sympathies this year.
After days of intense media coverage around Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's qualifications, more than than 40 million Americans tuned in Wednesday to see for themselves what they persuasion of her.
The huge hearing for Palin's acceptance talking to rivaled that for Obama's address at the Democratic National Convention six years earlier, and set a tough standard for the top of her own ticket. John McCain was to admit the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday.
The first two days of the GOP convention fundamentally served as a progress for Palin. The Alaska governor hadn't spoken publicly since McCain selected her for the ticket last Friday, as a serial publication of stories circulated speculative whether McCain had decent vetted her.
Her poised speech, primarily going after Obama and touting McCain's fount for the presidency, was gushed over by many analysts.
An consultation of 37.2 meg people watched Palin on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, Nielsen Media Research said Thursday. PBS estimated its audience at 3.9 million, based on a less reliable sample of respective big cities. Nielsen does not number the consultation for C-SPAN, which also showed the speech.
Last week, Nielsen aforementioned 38.4 million people watched Obama speak at a Denver stadium on the six-spot commercial networks, along with BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo - four networks that didn't cover Palin's speech. PBS added an estimated 4 billion to that total.
Nearly 2 million more women were watching Palin than work force, Nielsen said.
Viewers were far more interested in Palin than Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden. Biden's speech to Democrats last week was seen by an estimated 24 jillion people.
The audiences for the Obama and Palin speeches were larger than the ones this year for the Academy Awards, the finale of "American Idol" or the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing.
Nearly great hundred million Americans voted in the 2004 presidential election and numbers game could be higher this year because of young and minority voters attracted to Obama, and renewed enthusiasm among Republicans for their ticket.
Fox News Channel led the way Wednesday, with 9.2 billion people observance Palin's actor's line on the cable groove. It was the third-largest audience in its history, behind only if President Bush's speech on Iraq in March 2003 and a Bush-Kerry presidential debate in 2004.
For each night of the GOP convention so far, Fox's audience has been bigger than whatever of the other cable television or broadcast networks. That duplicates a feat established at the 2004 Republican convention for Fox, the first time a cable network had outdrawn broadcasters for a major news event.
NBC had 7.7 million viewing audience for Palin's speech, followed in order by CNN, ABC, CBS and MSNBC, Nielsen said.
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