Damn Tivo! Oh well, I recorded it off C-Span anyway. I was afraid CNN would interrupt to tell us that they had a new rumor about who McCain was going to pick.

Actually Steve, Nielsen does gather statistics from certain DVRs, like Tivo and most of those associated with major cable networks.

Americans have a choice to make, between inspiration and constipation. At least many cannot now claim that they were not able to make an informed choice.

Off topic, but oh my God that ICO file is atrocious. Someone please do something about that.

And I was watching PBS, so that's 38.3 million and 1, at least.

Good speech, but what was up with that country song right afterward? He should have let the crowd chant "yes we can" a little, too. Those are my only criticisms. Glad people watched.

The Republican convention will look like a bunch of Shriners zig-zagging around in their little cars in comparison.

For a nation which doesn't have all that great a record vis voting numbers and where an awful lot of people say "I'm not all that interested in politics", that's an awesome number of viewers.

I wonder how they count. By the number of TV sets that are switched on? Because that would mean a whole lot *more* people actually watched. Not just families but the parties Obama had organized especially for speech watching...

Did I add an extra 'viewer' to the ratings by having both my TV's tuned in?
DirecTv's DVR counts your views as they record them.
Thank goodness for c-span; I thought I was going to kill myself watching msnbc butcher the whole convention with their stupid 'fluff' and Chris Matthew's insistance on picking the most mentally inept people to interview!
Steve, your posts are a life saver. I've followed you & will continue to recommend your blog to every progressive liberal I know.

Don't forget us radio listeners too!

Did I add an extra 'viewer' to the ratings by having both my TV's tuned in?
DirecTv's DVR counts your views as they record them.
Thank goodness for c-span; I thought I was going to kill myself watching msnbc butcher the whole convention with their stupid 'fluff' and Chris Matthew's insistance on picking the most mentally inept people to interview!
Steve, your posts are a life saver. I've followed you & will continue to recommend your blog to every progressive liberal I know.

This is hilarious! BHO's big night drowned out by a young lady from Alaska. I love it!

Phew! I needed this dose of reality after the day spent in a fog of "wha?!?!"

This thing is still ours for the taking - and last night we pretty much took it.

i noted over at matthew yglesias' place that adam nagourney assures us that the choice of sara palin "eclipsed" obama's speech, just as if 38 million watchers simply stopped talking about it because they were awestruck by the gop veep choice.

the utter inability of clowns like nagourney to understand there is a world outside of their bubble remains astonishing.

BHO's big night drowned out ...

Yeah by loud guffaws over McCain's pick.

good old fat white guy: no smarter than adam nagourney....

Wonderful! I hope he touched a lot of people.

I was a PBS watcher, too, so that's 38 Million and 2.

I think the DNC should take the best parts of speeches by Gore, Kerry, the Clintons, the "regular folks" who spoke last night, other notables and Obama and cut them into 30 second spots to air on TV for the next 4 weeks.

Fat White Guy,

I said it earlier.

The only thing we like more than good news for the Democrats is bad news for Republicans.

You're guy effed up. You lose. Good day, sir.

PBS said they had 3.5 million viewers on Thursday night.

I watched most of the major speeches. I thought Al Gore's speech was by far the best, both in content and delivery.

Gore has grown and improved remarkably as a public speaker since leaving electoral politics. He has clearly benefited from performing in other contexts -- from his work on the lecture circuit with his "Inconvenient Truth" presentation, to his electrifying speeches to MoveOn audiences, to his guest appearances on "Saturday Night Live" working with some of the best improv-oriented comics in the business.

Gore's comparison of Obama's background, values and potential with those of Abraham Lincoln was entirely appropriate, moving and inspiring.

I noted that Gore spoke of the urgency of "ending our dependence on carbon-based fuels" rather than "dependence on foreign oil" as other speakers -- including Obama -- put it. Obama is unfortunately still talking about nonexistent "clean coal" technology as a "solution" to global warming. Gore understands that we need to phase out all fossil fuel use as quickly as possible, and that ending the use of coal is even more urgent than ending the use of oil.

I really wish that Gore were running for President -- indeed I wish he were running for re-election to a third term. I hope that Obama will appoint him to a cabinet position and task him with leading the implementation of his own proposal to produce one hundred percent of the USA's electricity from clean, renewable energy within ten years.

Why doesn't Nielsen track PBS or C-SPAN? I thought they were generically tracking whatever people watch, is that not the case? Seems kind of weird not to.

Also, Fat White Guy seems to assume that because he is unable to process more than one thought at a time (not to mention in a day), no one else can either. Strange little tic he has: attributing his own impediments to an entire nation.

Fat White Guy wrote: "This is hilarious! BHO's big night drowned out by a young lady from Alaska. I love it!"

For weak-minded, ignorant mental slaves of the right-wing propaganda machine like yourself, bullshit has been drowning out reality for a long time.

This is hilarious!! John SIDNEY McCain's big night drowned out by a hurricane! I love it!

Don't forget the DNC web feed. I haven't seen any numbers for how many people were watching the streaming videos.

And count me as a C-SPAN viewer as well. I just can't deal with the talkings heads.

Don't forget the DNC streaming video over the web.

And count me as another C-SPAN viewer. It was so nice to get the convention unfiltered by the pundits/idiots in the media.

Wait, why Palin? Wasn't Harriet Myers available?

"Mr. Obama's speech reached more viewers than the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year..."

The number 38 million + is meaningless to most of us, but THAT'S impressive.

Obama's speech last night was a good speech. He came across as very Presidential, serious yet human. Maybe he tried to put together too many sorts of message strands, but in practice he needed to and he did it with a proper balancing act between being insipid versus being too pretentiously effusive - that came across very well. I also thought the sentiments were sufficiently progressive, but not scary for a centrists and independents. Truly a memorable night for me and millions more.

This is hilarious!! John SIDNEY McCain's big night drowned out by a hurricane! I love it!

The hurricane might blow itself out by Thursday, but McCain is definitely going up against the opening game of the NFL football season.

The New York Giants play the Washington Redskins Thursday night at 7:00 Eastern. I'm willing to bet the football game blows McCain away.

One quarter of U.S. households watched Obama's speech. That is amazing.

The Nielsen numbers fail to count the people who gathered in public spaces to watch the speech in group settings. In my town there were at least two such internet inspired meetups -- the one I attended was held at a local pub and there were about 300 excited, happy & hopeful people in attendance. Still, however you count it -- 38 million votes is a lot more than the 537 (source: Wikipedia -- take it with a grain of salt) it took to win Florida in 2000.

Nielsen doesn't track PBS or C-Span because they don't get paid to. They track whatever someone pays them to track, it's that simple.

I know I was in a sro bar, and while there were cheers, and people crying at the end, attacking Washington people still gets booed in Mt. Pleasant.

forgot to mention, since the primary reason to use nielsen ratings is selling ads, PBS and c-span have no use for ratings.

In regards to the Fat White Guy comment...

Thank you Howard and SecularAnimist for setting the record straight; saves me from having to weigh in as well. :)

I much rather be called an 'elitist' for using my brain. I'd be embarrassed to be a Republican Kool Aid drinker who believes every word said on Fox News TV or what comes from Rush Limbaugh on the radio.

I'm another CSPAN viewer. Flashed over to MSNBC and CNN a few times, but couldn't suppress the gag reflex.

CSPAN, without all the talking head bullshit, was perfect.

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