Look at the impact grassroots had in voicing its anger over the ABC debate debacle:
The ratings for last week’s evening newscasts are in — and it appears that the angry viewers claiming that they would no longer watch ABC after last week’s poorly-received debate made good on their promise: NBC beat ABC by over 600,000 viewers last week — an unusually wide margin for the dueling newscasts.
One reason for that wider-than-usual gap — averaging out Friday’s numbers: On Friday, NBC beat ABC by 1.1 million viewers — a practically unheard of margin for an otherwise random Friday night. But it wasn’t so random — by Friday, the post-debate backlash was in full swing, with reviews castigating moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulous for their performance, and viewer complaints racking up over 17,600 and counting on ABC.com alone.
The ABC comments are now at 19,425, suggesting a drop-off after the initial outcry, so who knows if this was a flash rejection out of momentary anger or a larger-scale defection.
Read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/22/debate-backlash-abc-feels_n_97938.html
