Did Three Million People Not Turn Off Their TV Quickly Enough?

We’ve already discussed the surprising (to me) news that McCain out-drew Obama for their acceptance speeches: McCain pulled 38.9 million viewers to Obama’s 38.4 million.

I was half-joking earlier when I said I thought it was because those people who had been watching Eli beat the ‘Skins simply didn’t turn off their TV quickly enough. NBC went immediately to the convention from the game, with no post-game analysis or commercials. But there seems to be some merit to that notion.

NBC got 13.6 million viewers for football.  CBS got 6.5 million for Big Brother 10 in the 8-9 hour, and then 7.3 for CSI in the 9-10 hour.

So at 10:00, when the speech began, 13.6 people were watching NBC (probably fewer, I guess, since it wasn’t a terrific game), and 7.3 were watching CBS.

NBC had 8 million watch the Convention, to CBS’ 5 million. I happen to prefer NBC’s political coverage to CBS’–but not 37% better, especially not if I’ve had a couple of beers. I would imagine a goodly chunk of those 3 million MORE people who viewed the Convention on NBC simply didn’t change the channel. And given the way NBC moved into the Convention, I’m not entirely convinced those 3 million people stayed.

Not that it matters. I didn’t watch the whole speech, but I agree with the Twitter reported at Marc Ambinder’s site (no longer there) that says Obama aides were hoping a lot of people had stayed over from NFL. It wasn’t a great speech, so the big viewership numbers don’t necessarily help McCain.