As it turns out, ABC blundered in spurning Obama last night.
If ABC truly hoped that by being only scripted programming on broadcast for 8:00pm-8:30p, it would help out Pushing Daisies, that plan went awry. . . . Daisies scored a 4.2/7, pretty much the identical rating it had a week ago up (4.2/6).
According to Nielsen, 21.7% of households watched the ad. It was reportedly seen by 41% more people than Obama's spectacular Convention acceptance speech.
Check out what Media Week had to say:
Three networks -- CBS, NBC and Fox -- opened the evening with a half-hour paid political message from Presidential candidate Barack Obama, which fared as follows in the overnights:
8:00 p.m. - Barack Obama Political Message
NBC: 6.7/11 (#1)
CBS: 6.1/10 (#2)
Fox: 5.0/ 8 (#3)
In total, that came to an impressive 17.8 rating/29 share in the 8 p.m. half-hour. Although ABC was hoping facing Barack Obama on three networks would benefit Pushing Daisies, the struggling drama could only muster a fourth-place 4.2/ 7 in the overnights. Comparably, that was down by 29 percent from one year earlier (5.9/10 on Oct. 31, 2007).
All in all, it would seem a great night for Obama. Given that relatively few had previously seen some of that biographical footage, and given that many of the undecideds still report feeling uncertain -- even fearful -- about the man, my take is that this was a wise investment, a smart use of his huge financial advantage. Plus, it dominates the news cycle for a day or so, with just five precious days left for McNasty to turn things around. That's a lot of bang for three million bucks.
Over the next few days, we'll see if it has any impact on the polls and/or solidifies his support.
As for the geniuses over at ABC, I'm guessing they're not too happy this fine morning.
Update: In answer to a question posted by a few commentators below, The Hollywood Reporters states:
If Barack Obama fails to win the election, perhaps the networks should hire him to entertain viewers on Wednesday nights.
On average, Obama's 30-minute primetime infomercial managed to outperform the usual broadcast programming in the 8 p.m. time period.
The Obama special was seen by 26.3 million viewers across broadcasters CBS, NBC and Fox, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.
By comparison:
The lowest-rated of the three presidential debates received a 52.4 million viewers -- but that was carried by more networks and was, after all, a debate.
The Ross Perot specials in 1992 averaged 11.6 million viewers, but those were 15 separate specials that ran on different nights.