Well, it’s official. American’s love election coverage – especially on election night! The numbers have been totaled and according to Nielsen’s reports (as posted by the Hollywood Reporter), over 71 million viewers tuned in to watch the numbers come in on the various networks last night.
The number of people watching last night’s election coverage over the various 14 networks airing it topped the 69.9 million viewers that tuned in to see Sarah Palin go head to head in a debate with Joe Biden. And if we wanted to compare the numbers to previous elections, this year’s election night beat-out 2000’s, in which 61.6 million viewers tuned in to see George W. Bush beat Al Gore.
As for the network that won out over all of the other networks for the most viewers, ABC takes that prize. ABC earned itself 13.1 million viewers while CNN came in second with 12.3 million viewers.
I guess it’s difficult not to get caught up in the excitement of the election coverage as it plays out. Once the polls start closing and the numbers begin trickling in, it becomes almost mesmerizing, though this year it seemed pretty evident early on that Obama was going to take it.
