"We recognize that the way people here in the United States and around the world access and consume information has changed dramatically over the past decade," said Shawn Turner, a White House deputy press secretary. "That's why, in addition to traditional media formats, we use a wide range of new and emerging communication vehicles including social media, websites and podcasts to reach audiences."
Yorker News - At least 14.6 million people watched President Obama's prime-time Thursday immigration speech live, a figure that put it neck-and-neck with CBS's The Big Bang Theory in the same time slot.
But Obama's audience was a also fraction of the 41.6 million viewers President George W. Bush commanded for a similar White House address to the nation in 2006.
The big difference? The three major broadcast networks carried Bush's speech live. Obama was largely relegated to basic cable. But the White House also notes they had an advantage Bush did not: Social media.
Nielsen Media has not put out a combined audience number for Obama's speech. But adding together numbers released by the major networks puts Obama on par with The Big Bang Theory's 14.6 million viewers.
Univision, a Spanish-language network, won the night, commanding 4.8 million viewers. But many of them may have tuned in for the scheduled Latin Grammy Awards, which were delayed 15 minutes by Obama's speech. Telemundo delivered another 2 million, providing what that network said was its best-performing news night of the year.
English-language Fox News Channel, citing Nielsen figures, reported nearly 4.3 million viewers, followed by MSNBC with 1.8 million, and CNN with 1.7 million.
Obama's ratings do not include those who may have watched on PBS or C-SPAN, or on any number of local affiliates who preempted network programming.
It also does not include online viewership. The White House says nearly 300,000 people watched the speech on its website (though not all live). Four Facebook videos — including a preview, a behind-the-scenes movie and two clips from the speech — got a combined 7.5 million views.
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