56 million people watched Obama's Sunday night announcement

[RandySF]

Despite airing after primetime Sunday in about 80 percent of the country, President Obama's 9-minute address to the country announcing the capture and death of Osama bin Laden drew about 56.5 million viewers, Nielsen said Tuesday.

Broadcasters ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo and Univision joined cable news outlets CNN, Fox News, HLN and MSNBC in carrying the hastily scheduled address (11:35-11:44 p.m. ET), in which Obama revealed that U.S. military forces had killed bin Laden in a targeted attack in Pakistan.

Individual breakdowns for the broadcast networks weren't immediately available, but CNN led all cablers with nearly 10 million viewers.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118036336

[Drunken Irishman]

1. CNN and NBC had the best coverage...

I was really impressed with CNN's coverage all night on Sunday.

[Renew Deal]

2. A lot of people were roused out of bed for that.

It would have been more people if it wasn't so late on the east coast.

10 Million for CNN is a massive audience.

[Tx4obama]

3. Here's another article link with some more info

http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-bin-laden-ratings

[leftstreet]

5. ?? 56.5 million viewers equal "80% of the nation" ??

"What was even more impressive is that 80% of the nation watched the impromptu speech in non-prime time. For most of the country it was closer to bed time than prime time, yet America stayed up to watch history being made."

??

[Tx4obama]

6. I think they made a boo boo

I think they meant to say that that 80% of THE FOLKS THAT WATCHED were watching in 'non-prime time'.
The other 20% would have been on the far west coast, Alaska, and Hawaii.

I think that's what they were trying to say.

[krispos42]

8. Well, there are about 90 or 100 million households in America

And they count each household as a "viewer". So you figure that there were 71 million households watching TV at the time, total, then 56 million is pretty good.


Probably half the country saw the announcement live, all told. That's 155 million people!

[JaneQPublic]

4. At my office Monday, many folks admitted to staying up til 2 a.m. (nt)

[FrenchieCat]

7. I couldn't sleep......

I'm not sure why...cause it wasn't that I was "excited".
Guess I just couldn't believe it.

[rainbow4321]

9. Wonder how huge cell phone use was with texting nationally

around that time. I know I was sending/receiving them back and forth with family, starting off with me telling them to find a TV or get online ASAP.