MediaLife: Strong Turnout for Bush's TV Address(smart Thurs-night WH move)

[DeepModem Mom]

Strong turnout
for Bush's TV address

Big Four networks average 32.8 million viewers


President Bush planned his first televised news conference in more than a year inconveniently on the first night of May sweeps, crimping most of the broadcast networks’ plans.
There was even speculation over whether all the broadcast networks would air the conference, but all of the Big Four did after the White House moved the start time from 8:30 to 8.
The live telecast drew an average 32.75 million total viewers across the four networks, according to Nielsen overnights.
That’s 23.1 percent more than the 26.6 million who tuned into the Big Four for Bush’s State of the Union address in February.
The president likely got the bigger audience because viewers were tuning in for the usual highly rated Thursday night fare on the networks. The White House didn’t schedule the speech until Wednesday, so presumably some sizable share of viewers tuned in thinking they were about to watch their favorite Thursday shows, such as CBS's "Survivor."...


http://www.medialifemagazine.com/News2005/april05/apr25/5_fri/news2friday.html