While the nation's votes were being counted on Tuesday night, more than 66 million viewers were watching news coverage on a baker's dozen of television channels, according to estimates released by Nielsen on Wednesday.
Viewership came close to matching the modern-day election night ratings record set back in 2008, when 71.5 million viewers watched from 8 to 11 p.m. This year, about 66.8 million viewers were watching on one of the 13 networks with news coverage counted by Nielsen.
President Obama‘s re-election was projected by the major networks between 11 and 11:30 p.m. Nielsen did not release an audience total for that time period. The first network to make the projection, NBC, was also the most-watched one on Tuesday night, with 12.1 million viewers between 8 and 11 p.m. The ratings represented a “resounding victory†for NBC, “grounded in accurate journalism that was on full display last night,†Steve Capus, the NBC News president, said on Wednesday .
Fox News Channel came in second with 11.5 million viewers, followed by ABC with 10.5 million, CNN with 9.3 million, and CBS with 7.9 million. The Fox broadcast network had 4.9 million viewers and MSNBC had 4.7 million.
Hourly ratings were not immediately available for the broadcast networks, so it was impossible to say how many viewers stayed awake for Mr. Obama's victory speech at 1:45 a.m. But the hourly ratings for Fox News, CNN and MSNBC showed a stark difference in viewer behavior. Fox News had 10.1 million viewers in the 11 p.m. hour when it named Mr. Obama the winner of the election, but just 2.7 million viewers in the 1 a.m. hour when Mr. Obama spoke. CNN, on the other hand, had 10.7 million viewers at 11 p.m., and still had 8.2 million at 1 a.m., indicating a desire to stay up for the president's speech.
Because CNN had a bigger audience into the early morning hours on Wednesday, it was able to declare a rare victory over Fox News between the hou rs of 7 p.m. and 2 a.m.
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