by Brent Baker
Many more people watched Survivor on CBS or Friends on NBC on November 8, but by showing President Bush's address from Atlanta, ABC doubled its normal audience for Whose Line is It Anyway? in the time slot. The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes reported that ABC's airing of Bush also garnered more than twice the audience of the Family Guy on Fox and racked up relatively big numbers on the cable news channels — with FNC grabbing the most viewers.
In her November 10 story, de Moraes noted how “Bush delivered ABC's best number in the time period since Bush's prime-time news conference on Oct. 11.”
Noting how Fox had considered asking affiliates to carry the speech, de Moraes relayed: “Fox execs may wish they had compelled stations to carry the Fox News Channel feed of Bush's speech after all, because he might have delivered to the premiere of The Tick a better lead-in audience than did the return of Family Guy. The resuscitation of that series scored less than half the audience Bush did on ABC — and Bush even snagged more young viewers than did the allegedly hip animated sitcom.”
On the cable news channels, “Fox News Channel carried him and registered nearly 3 million; nearly 2 million preferred to watch him on CNN; and nearly 1 million caught him on MSNBC.”
But most Americans preferred regular shows: “Altogether, Bush averaged an audience of nearly 19 million from 8:30 Thursday night. That is about as many folks as chose the fifth episode of Survivor 3 on CBS instead. But the President was no match for the lovely and pregnant Rachel: About 24 million tuned in to NBC's Friends.”
I'd assume all these numbers are nationwide totals. Since Bush only got prime time carriage in the eastern and central time zones, viewership of his speech would have been a bit greater, and Friends and Survivor a little smaller, if Bush had aired opposite them on ABC at 8pm PST, 7pm MST.
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)
