NBC - VIEWERS PREFER OBAMA/MCCAIN TO DODGERS/PHILLIES

The third and final presidential debate Wednesday night attracted 28.91 million viewers on the broadcast networks (cable figures were not immediately available), with NBC leading with 10.34 million viewers, followed by ABC with 9.66 million, and CBS with 8.91 million. Fox did not cover the debate because of the MLB National League playoff game, which averaged 7.26 million viewers. (Significantly, the game drew its biggest audience during the hour before the debate and the half-hour after it.) Most viewers remained tuned in to the debate analyses that followed. NBC counted 8.19 million viewers, ABC 8.00 million, and CBS 6.80 million. The late-night shows also led off with humorous political references, all of them written and taped before the debate actually occurred. (Indeed some of the jokes sounded as if they could have been tailor-made for Bob Hope. An example from David Letterman's spiel "How about Barack Obama. He's going door to door, knocking on doors. It's fascinating. It's a throwback. I don't know if he's getting any votes, but today he came back with a big bag of Halloween candy.") Meanwhile, Fox said Wednesday that Major League Baseball had agreed to move the start time of Game Six of the World Series to 8 35 p.m. so that the Barack Obama campaign could "communicate with voters" on all four major broadcast networks during the 8 00 p.m. half hour. The campaign is reportedly paying nearly $1 million to each network for the October 29 special, details of which have not been disclosed.

16/10/2008