I hadn't yet watched President Obama's full speech at Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner, so earlier this afternoon I went over to YouTube to check it out. Before I even pressed play, the first thing that amazed me was the view count: 6.1 million views. That's seriously viral for a political video, more than
watched his speech on race in its first week. I don't have C-SPAN's ratings, but it's safe to say that the online viewership of this video dwarfed the live broadcast, probably by an order of magnitude, another validation of the internet as a medium.
Coincidentally, Nielsen just released data showing the percentage of American households with televisions has declined for first time in 20 years. That, however, is not necessarily a sign of the triumph of the internet: much of the dropoff is driven by economics, and most households without televisions have no internet and gross income of under $20,000. In addition, 2009 featured the digital switchover, making over-the-air television a much more complicated proposition.
Anyway, enough from me blathering about numbers. Enjoy the speech. It's hilarious.