April 30, 2005

Bush draws 32.7 million

An audience of 32.7 million viewers watched President Bush's Thursday night news conference, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Though some networks initially balked at airing the 8 p.m. conference because it would pre-empt an hour of prime-time programming on the first night of the May sweeps ratings period, it was carried live on eight networks and cable channels -- ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel and CNBC. (The 32.7 million figure is the combined total.)

The conference was initially scheduled for 8:30 p.m., but when several networks hesitated to interrupt their hourlong programs, the White House rescheduled the president's appearance.

Afterward, an audience of 33.63 million viewers tuned in for Survivor: Palau and The Apprentice airing on CBS and NBC, respectively, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Both were delayed an hour from their normal start times by the news conference. (The audience for Survivor was 21.21 million, while The Apprentice was seen by 12.42 million Thursday night.)

...according to Drudge, they cut right off the live feed from the President on the alphabet channels while he was still speaking to go to Paris Hilton, Survivor and Donald Trump.
I wonder what my fellow Americans thought about that, particularly the ones who don't have cable (news).
The networks hate this President as much as their reporters do.
Still, it was a lot of fun to see President Bush herd cats field questions from the fifth column fourth estate and it was good to hear his official stand on energy, SS reform, the Iraqi security situation, the judiciary and the role of faith in American lives.
I wish he'd either spoken about or been asked about our borders, but that didn't happen.
Even though we're all at lot less frantic 3 and 1/2 years away from 9/11, hearing our Commander-in-Chief speak is important to quite a lot of us, as this huge audience figure attests and it's inexcusable and outrageous that both the network execs and the White House press corps can't tailor their hateful behavior and personal disrespect towards President Bush accordingly!
The MSM deserves to get hurt and hurt bad by falling viewership and dwindling subscribers and lost "eyeballs" for their abuse of the public trust and our federally licensed airwaves, especially when they can't be bothered to give our President (in wartime even!) a few minutes to keep the citizenry informed.
(I'm not even mentioning the fact that many more people stayed put and watched their awful "May sweeps" offerings because they'd tuned in to hear the President, but who wouldn't normally have turned on just to see "Survivor.")
Let this be a reminder to you that we're still fighting one front of the [Culture] War here at home, but I'd say from the size of the American audience who crowded around the set to watch Bush that this was yet another small victory for the Good Guys.