Viewership for the Republican National Convention plunged sharply on its second night compared with the same evening of 2008, when Sarah Palin made her debut as the vice presidential nominee.
An average of 21.9 million viewers tuned into the nine broadcast and cable networks that were broadcasting convention proceedings Wednesday night between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., according to Nielsen. That was 41% less than the 37.2 million who tuned in the same night four years ago, the research firm said.
The largest audience was tuned to Fox News, which averaged 7.7 million viewers, down 15% from nine million in 2008, according to Nielsen data provided by Fox.
Fox News is a unit of News Corp NWSA -1.11%., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.
Among broadcast networks, CBS averaged 2.4 million viewers compared with 4.9 million in 2008. ABC’s viewership fell to 2.8 million from 5.9 million. NBC’s audience also fell. Time Warner Inc.’s CNN had the steepest viewership decline of the major networks, with 1.3 million viewers vs. 6.1 million four years ago.
Tuesday night’s proceedings, in contrast, convention had a slightly stronger performance than 2008. This year, 22.3 million viewers tuned in, or 4% more than the corresponding night four years ago.
Source: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
