Obama’s Speech: 52 Million-Plus TV Viewers

Much more importantly, 53 million plus understood his speech. I'm guessing that Jindal's response wouldn't have gotten as many hits if it hadn't been for the train wreck factor.

More than 52 million people watched President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress in prime time on Tuesday, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The TV audience, pegged at 52.4 million by Nielsen, does not include out-of-home or online viewers. Nielsen said the address, which was broadcast roughly between 9 and 10:30 p.m., averaged a 49 share across 10 networks, which means that almost half of the people watching TV at the time were watching Mr. Obama’s speech.

(snip)

George W. Bush’s first address before Congress, in Feb. 2001, reached an average audience of 39.8 million viewers.

Online, a C-SPAN video of Mr. Obama’s address has been viewed more than 150,000 times on YouTube. The Republican response, delivered by Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, has been viewed more than 75,000 times.

Mark Begich (D-AK) erupts over Jindal crack

Good for Begich, it was a stupid attempt at one of their zombie lies that needs to be called out every single time.

Alaska Sen. Mark Begich has a message for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal: Don’t make fun of our volcano money.

In his rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s address on Tuesday night, Jindal made a joke about a $140 million line item for volcano monitoring, saying: “Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.”

Begich, a Democrat, fired off a harsh letter to Republican Jindal on Wednesday evening, saying that volcano monitoring “is a matter of life and death in Alaska,” which has several active volcanoes. Indeed, one such volcano erupted in 1989, nearly causing a jumbo jet to crash, Begich said in his letter.

The federally funded Alaska Volcano Observatory, with offices in Fairbanks and Anchorage, monitors 31 active volcanoes.