ABC Debate: High Ratings, Critics Give Broadcast A Poor Review

[ariesgem]

Media critics may be panning Wednesday night's Democratic debate on ABC, but the ratings today show that millions more people outside the nation's newsrooms have an opinion on last night's performances from Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.

ABC sent out a release proclaiming the debate to be "easily the most-watched of the 2008 presidential cycle" with 10.7 million viewers.

For the 8-10 p.m. time period, this marks ABC's best Total Viewing audience since 11/28/07, its largest Adult 18-49 rating since 2/27/08, and its best Adult 25-54 rating since 1/9/08.


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Still, the high ratings don't appear to be helping the network's reputation among the critics. HuffPost has received a huge response from bloggers about the debate. The majority are negative.

USA Today gathered reports from other outlets slamming ABC for its performance last night:

The Washington Post's TV critic says Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos "turned in shoddy, despicable performances."


"For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with," Tom Shales writes.

Time's Joe Klein says he has "slightly--well, a microscopic smidgeon--more sympathy for the gotcha-moderators from ABC than Tom Shales does." He blames the trivial nature of the questions on the trivial nature of the campaign.

Guardian America's deadlineUSA blog issues its verdict with the headline: "Worst. Debate. Ever."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/17/abc-debate-high-ratings-c_n_97249.html

[gateley]

1. It's too bad that now that when more people are

BEGINNING to pay attention, this is what they get.

[DrFunkenstein]

2. ABC We Turn Our Lonely Eyes To You...And This Is What We Get

An embarassment to journalism, if you could even associate the debate with such a word.