Another Look at the State of the Union Address: 27% Turned Away After First 5 Minutes

Kantar Media studied the tuning behavior of 100,000 households across the United States in the moments leading up to, during, and after President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. Kantar, which monitors the media for global clients, examined eight networks that aired the speech live — ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, FOX, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and NBC.

Kantar used second-by-second audience data gleaned from set-top boxes connected to TV sets from 9pm – 10:30pm. It found:

  • In the first five minutes, 27% of the audience tuned away.
  • The networks that benefited the most from the initial tune-away were TBS, USA, and ESPN
  • CBS and FOX showed sharp losses in viewers at the top of the program, while ABC and NBC showed noticeable gains.
  • Tune-away was gradual as the speech progressed. No individual topics drove significant audience loss.
  • After the speech, Fox News Channel quickly gained viewers, becoming the second-most watched network after NBC. This gain presumably was in anticipation of the Republican response (seen in the second graph after the jump).

As we reported yesterday, 37.8 million watched the president’s address across 14 networks. Read on for the minute-by-minute analysis…

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The Ticker: Geraldo, Vinita, Dylan

  • FNC’ Geraldo Rivera will be in LA next week for the debut of his new 2-hour radio show on KABC. “There is plenty to do out there. Los Angeles stories tend to be nationalized larger than life,” Rivera tells the OC Register.
  • Wondering what Vinita Nair has been doing since leaving her co-anchor gig at “ABC World News Now?” Well, for starters, she had a baby this week.
  • “Too much idiocy, too much work, too little sleep, and I lost my mind and said what I was thinking,” MSNBCs’ Dylan Ratigan tells the Miami Herald about his mad-as-hell moment last fall. Ratigan wraps up three days of shows from Miami Beach today at 4pmET.

When You’re Oprah’s BFF, and Anchor a Morning Show, You Can Shoot Down Oprah Rumors

“CBS This Morning” co-anchor Gayle King, who holds the title of Duchess of Oprahlandia, was able to stop a story in its tracks this morning. King denied the chatter that Oprah Winfrey is the godmother of Beyonce and Jay-Z’s daughter, Blue Ivy.

“It’s absolutely not true that she’s the godmother,” King said on this morning’s show. “She’s friends with them, of course, and likes them both very much. She’s working on sending them a baby gift. She hasn’t even had time to send a baby gift because she’s been away.”

Que Pasa Newt?

You never know what will show up in the TVNewser tip box. This morning it was this:

Newt Gingrich a dicho que el hara solo Ingles en los negocios. Que no permitira que se hable otro idima.

We consulted TVNewser’s official Spanish translator who interprets the line this way:

Gingrich has said that he will make just English the language in business and he won’t permit speaking any other language.

Issues important to Latinos were a hot topic at last night’s debate in Jacksonville, including immigration, Cuba policy and who are the leading Hispanic American political leaders.

Obama Tells Diane Sawyer Finger Wave, ‘Not a Big Deal’

An AP photographer got the picture of the day Wednesday as Pres. Obama took his post-State of the Union swing state tour to Arizona. Upon greeting the state’s Republican governor Jan Brewer, the two exchanged words and at one point AP photographer Haraz Ghanbari snapped a picture that spawned a thousand words: Brewer seen raising her finger to the president.

By Thursday morning the image made its way onto websites and cable news channels — most cable news channels.

Because it would be very tempting to use the image in news reports, a CNN VP had to remind CNN producers that the network is no longer a client of the Associated Press and should not use the picture. “Do not use this AP image on any platform. Do not even hold up a newspaper in which the photo is published,” reads the internal memo obtained by TVNewser.

Brewer explained that the president was “somewhat thin-skinned and a little tense” during the brief encounter.

Here’s how Pres. Obama explained it to ABC’s Diane Sawyer, when she got a sit down interview with him Thursday in Las Vegas:

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(Image Credit: Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP)

This MSNBC Host Apparently Isn’t Familiar To Some Jeopardy! Contestants: ‘Who Is Rachel Maddow?’

On last night’s “Jeopardy!” a pair of TV news personalities were the the subjects in a category about Rhodes Scholars. One was ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, and the other was a certain MSNBC anchor (spoiler: Rachel Maddow), who, despite there being a picture along with the question, none of the contestants could quite figure out the identity of.

WATCH:

This is not the first time that “Jeopardy!” contestants haven’t been on top of their cable news facts. Last year a question about CNN brought about the answer “Morning Joe,” and the year before contestants were unable to identify “Good Morning America.” News Corpse notes that some contestants were unfamiliar with Fox News Channel contributor Sarah Palin’s recent book.

Sunday Show Ratings: January 22

The Sunday morning public affairs shows continue to ping-pong, with NBC’s “Meet the Press” topping CBS’ “Face the Nation” on January 22. “MTP” topped “Face” in both total and demo viewers, though the CBS show was very close behind in both regards.

ABC’s “This Week” placed third in both categories, “Fox News Sunday” placed fourth in both categories, while Univision’s “Al Punto” placed fifth.

NBC, CBS and ABC were up in both total and demo viewers compared to the same week last year. Fox was flat in total viewers, and down slightly in the demo.

Cable replays for “Fox News Sunday” added 3.327M total viewers, and 655,000 demo viewers.

The numbers for January 22:

Network Program Total Viewers A25-54
NBC
“Meet the Press” 3.66M 1.15M
CBS
“Face the Nation” 3.34M 1.07M
ABC “This Week” 2.67M 804K
FOX “Fox News Sunday” 1.42M 628K
Univision “Al Punto” 845K 406K

Thomas Tillman Upped to Deputy Bureau Chief of CBS News DC

Thomas Tillman, a 22-year CBS News veteran, has been named Deputy Washington Bureau Chief. Tillman has been filling in for Jim McGlinchy is now Senior Broadcast Producer for the “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.”

Tillman began with CBS in 1989 working as an AP for Newspath. He moved to Politics in 1992 and to the Washington Bureau. In 1998 he would join the special events unit, becoming coordinating producer in 2009.

“This is a great time to be working at CBS News and this bureau is a critical part of furthering the impressive progress we are seeing at the CBS Evening News, CBS This Morning and, of course, Face The Nation,” writes bureau chief Chris Isham in a note to staff. “I am confident that Thomas will be instrumental in making sure that our bureau continues to operate at its highest and most productive capacity.”

Crowds Make Noise During, and Before, CNN Debate

There was plenty of noise at the start of tonight’s CNN debate, and before it. Erin Burnett hosted her show from the campus of the University of North Florida, with a loud crowd behind her.  “A Ron Paul crowd,” said Burnett. “Pretty passionate and excited.” That included someone who held up a sign through most of the uproarious hour that read: Don’t Believe the Liberal Media. As the debate began and the candidates introduced themselves, the biggest applause went to Rick Santorum who said he brought along a North Florida resident: his 93-year-old mother.

> More: Newt Gingrich calls Wolf Blitzer‘s question about wealth “a nonsense question.” Crowd cheers. Blitzer persists, “If you make a serious allegation against Gov. Romney like that, you need to explain that.” And he did:

The Scoreboard: Wednesday, January 25

25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

  • Total day: FNC: 372 | MSNBC: 170 | CNN: 135 | HLN: 97
  • Primetime: FNC: 743 | MSNBC: 300 | CNN: 218 | HLN: 123

5p: 6p: 7p: 8p: 9p: 10p: 11p: 12a:
FNC TheFive: Baier: Shep: O’Reilly: Hannity: Greta: O’Reilly: Hannity:
445 456 511 932 718 573 367 307
MSNBC Matthews: Sharpton: Matthews: EdShow: Maddow: O’Donnell: EdShow: Maddow:
134 177 228 258 381 262 242 235
CNN Blitzer: KingUSA: Burnett: Cooper: Morgan: Cooper: Burnett: Morgan:
146 120 107 173 232 249 136 117
HLN Special: Prime: Issues: Grace: DrDrew: Grace: Showbiz: DrDrew:
42 69 95 111 141 122 128 130

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