Obama Inauguration likely 2nd to Reagan in TV viewers; 27 million watch online at CNN

[Regis Philbin]

Reagan's was 28 years ago...with a smaller population and not anywhere close to as many media outlets.

Reagan had 10 times the charisma and "presence" than the little-experienced and supremely arrogant Obama.

Plus, Reagan didn't flub the oath...

http://www.variety.com/VR1117998855.html

Inaugural ratings likely second best

Obama head-to-head with Reagan's numbers

By RICK KISSELL

Early numbers for the inauguration of Barack Obama are impressive but, perhaps surprisingly, could come in below those for Ronald Reagan's first term in 1981.

Preliminary Nielsen estimates show that 29.2% of U.S. households were watching the presidential inauguration -- easily the largest in decades but below the 37.4 household rating for Reagan. Obama's figures include viewership on roughly 15 broadcast and cable networks, while the Reagan ceremony was viewed only on ABC, CBS and NBC; also, they do not include the huge online viewing this time around, with CNN.com, FoxNews.com and MSNBC.com all reporting record streaming video traffic.

The Reagan inauguaration in 1981 ended up averaging a whopping 41.8 million viewers to stand as the most-watched on record. The previous low-water mark came in 2005 for the second inauguration of George W. Bush (15.5 million).

The Raleigh-Durham market had the largest percentage of households tuned in to the inauguration (51%), while host city Washington, D.C. came in second (48%). Seattle-Tacoma had the lowest with 18.8%, and the West in general delivered much smaller audiences than the rest of the country due to the earlier start time.

[Regis Philbin]

American Idol also had better ratings than The Messiah as people became bored to tears with the nonstop media lovefest with Obama.

http://www.variety.com/VR1117998855.html

In primetime, Fox's "American Idol" scored the biggest numbers Tuesday, as auds seemed to tire of inaugural coverage. Sure, ABC did solid numbers for its coverage of the inaugural balls, but news specials on CBS and NBC were not competitive with entertainment programs in their time periods.

According to preliminary nationals for Nielsen, "American Idol" dominated Tuesday's opening hour with an 8.9 rating/22 share in adults 18-49 and 22.4 million viewers overall. It was down sharply from last week's two-hour premiere, as expected, but also came in more than 15% below the show's second Tuesday episode of a year ago. Still, it provided a strong lead-in for rookie drama "Fringe" (4.7/11 in 18-49, 12.1 million viewers overall), which led or tied for the 9 o'clock lead in key young-adult demo categories.

[Richard Tafoya]

You seem to forget that since this was happening on a weekday during school and work hours, a huge portion of the population watched it there and online.

Also, Reagan's inauguration happened on the same day as a huge news story: The release of the Iranian hostages.

NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/arts/television/22hbo.html
The ratings do not count viewers at work, school or other out-of-home settings. Millions of people huddled around television sets at work, and others watched Internet streams. Nevertheless, the in-home numbers underscored the intense interest in Mr. Obama.


CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/21/inauguration.online.video/
News sites, including CNN.com, shattered records for viewers watching live streaming video online. And, sometimes for the first time, news sites carried video feeds on their front pages.

About 7.7 million people watched the inauguration on Tuesday online at the same time, according to Akamai Technologies Inc. That likely makes the inauguration the single most-watched event in the history of live Web video, according to the company, which handles Web traffic for more than 150 news sites worldwide, including nytimes.com, Ustream, Viacom, WSJ.com and others.

Across the day, nearly 27 million people watched streaming video on CNN.com Live on Tuesday, according to CNN spokeswoman Jennifer Martin. That's more than five times the site's previous record, set on Election Day, when 5.3 million people watched streaming video of the day's events.

[tiger_rascal]

Somebody is mad and bitter! :laugh:

Get over it Regis! :noway:

[WannaBreatheYou]

As usual, you choose to ignore facts that don't go with your skewed view.

[pinky]

I have to admit, after all the abuse we heaped on W, I guess we really ought to tolerate a little bit of Regis' bitterness about losing this time around.

Even if our complaints were grounded in reality, unlike his.

[DoubleEdgeSword]

With the advent of live streaming video online, household TV viewing numbers aren't are true reflection of viewership anymore.

[Whoda Thunk?]

Shhhh- your common sense is raining on Regis' parade of hate.

[Annoyedlistner]

Of course you didnt factor in the amount of people that watched it on internet. I work for a network management company, we monitor a lot of other companies networks. You wouldnt believe the bandwidth spikes we saw during the Inauguration.

I know my entire office watched via Internet.

But thats ok Reg...spin it however you want. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

[db44]

Of course you didnt factor in the amount of people that watched it on internet. I work for a network management company, we monitor a lot of other companies networks. You wouldnt believe the bandwidth spikes we saw during the Inauguration.

I know my entire office watched via Internet.

But thats ok Reg...spin it however you want. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

I would believe. So many of my friends had trouble watching because of how many others were trying to get in. I'mlucky to work in a place where TV is a vital part at times to what we do.