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| Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Thursday, July 28, 2016, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Donald Trump pulled off the upset - at least in television popularity.
Hillary
Clinton's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was
seen by 29.8 million people on the commercial networks, the Nielsen
company said Friday. That fell short of the 32.2 million people who
watched Trump speak to the Republicans a week before.
Trump,
who used to carefully watch television ratings during his days as star
of "The Apprentice," immediately boasted about the victory during a
campaign appearance Friday in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
"We beat her by millions on television. Millions!" he said. "Honestly, the numbers were incredible."
Although
Trump has been a proven ratings draw throughout his campaign, the
Democratic convention had proven more popular with viewers than the
Republicans for its first three nights. Stars like Alicia Keys, Katy
Perry, Lenny Kravitz and Paul Simon performed for the Democrats, and
President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and former President
Bill Clinton showed off their oratorical skills.
Meanwhile,
star power was much dimmer at the Republican meeting. One night, the
convention even ended 15 minutes earlier than planned, leaving
television networks scrambling to fill time.
But
viewers turned up to hear Trump: his audience was watched by 9 million
more people than it was for any other night of the Republican
convention, Nielsen said. Meanwhile, the Democrats actually had slightly
more viewers for the first night of its convention than it did for the
nominee's speech, typically the highest-rated night of convention
coverage.
Four years ago, the audience for
Obama's acceptance speech was 35.7 million, while 30.2 million saw
Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Nielsen's
count did not include PBS' commercial-free coverage, which made the
margin closer. PBS said its viewership for Clinton's speech was 3.91
million people, and 2.75 million the week earlier for Trump.
Fox
News Channel went from first to worst during a tumultuous two weeks
that included the resignation of its chief executive, Roger Ailes, on
the day Trump spoke. An estimated 9.4 million people watched Trump on
Fox, the most popular network for Republicans, and Fox took out
newspaper ads touting its first-place finish among those covering the
convention.
Just over 3 million people watched
Clinton on Fox. Perhaps sensing its audience's level of interest, Fox
showed fewer live events from the convention floor than its rivals,
preferring discussions hosted by anchors Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly.
Sean Hannity was brought in for analysis immediately after the
convention closed each night.
Meanwhile, it
was a coup for CNN, whose 7.51 million viewers topped all of the
networks Thursday by a comfortable margin. This convention marked the
first time the cable network beat the broadcasters in head-to-head
competition. The relatively newsy events appeared to benefit the
networks that followed them throughout the prime time hours, as opposed
to ABC, CBS and NBC, which came on at 10 p.m. ET each night.
MSNBC
was seen by 5.27 million, NBC had 4.52 million, ABC had 3.85 million
and CBS had 3.65 million, Nielsen said. It was measuring the time all of
the networks competed head-to-head, from 10 p.m. until the convention's
close.
For politicians, the true measure of
the speech's effectiveness will come in about a week, when polls
indicate whether or not the convention gave Clinton a bump in
popularity.
