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Nearly 50 Million Watch Obama's News Conference

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The Associated Press

Published: February 11, 2009

Nearly 50 million viewers tuned in for President Barack Obama's first prime time news conference on Monday, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The hourlong conference, which focused on the economy and the proposed stimulus package, was carried on eight networks and averaged a combined 30.8 household rating with 49,455,133 viewers, Nielsen reports.

The networks were ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Univision, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC.

Obama's Q&A with the media didn't come close to the 98 million that watched Super Bowl XLIII, and it's also not a record-breaker among presidential news conferences.

Nielsen figures show that on October 11, 2001, exactly a month after 9/11, President George W. Bush held a prime time news conference that was carried by seven networks that generated a 42.0 household rating with 64,813,000 viewers.

Also, just weeks after his inauguration in 1993, President Bill Clinton held a prime time news conference carried by four networks that had a combined 42.1 household rating with 64,300,000 viewers on average.

According to Nielsen, the average U.S. TV home in 1993 had approximately 40 channels available. By 2000, the average home had 61 channels, and now that figure has increased to more than 118 channels available.

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