At least one result is definitively in for campaign 2012: Democratic President Barack Obama beat Republican former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the TV ratings war:
President Barack Obama can beat rival Mitt Romney as a television draw, but can’t eclipse his old self.
The Nielsen company said 35.7 million people watched the final night of the Democratic convention on Thursday between 10 and 11 p.m. Eastern time. That’s when the president delivered his nomination acceptance speech.
Last week, Mitt Romney had 30.3 million viewers for his speech at the GOP convention, with an assist from Clint Eastwood.
Four years ago, Nielsen said candidate Barack Obama’s speech was seen by 38.3 million. But that estimate did not include PBS’ audience, which no doubt pushed the audience over 40 million.
Even though NBC did not show the second night of this year’s convention due to a football game, loyal viewers returned to Brian Williams for the final night. NBC’s coverage was seen by 7.38 million viewers on Thursday.
Not a whopsidded net plus in viewers — but more viewers to beat Romney. Which, many polls at this time show, could be where the election is heading as well.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.