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Obama State of Union speech watched by 33.5 million on TV
U.S. President Barack Obama (C), flanked by Vice President Joe Biden (L) and House Speaker John Boehner (D-OH), delivers his State of the Union speech on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 12, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Charles Dharapak/Pool
(Reuters) - Some 33.5 million Americans tuned in for President Barack Obama's economy-focused State of the Union speech live on television, just a slight drop from the TV audience for his 2012 address.
According to ratings data from Nielsen on Wednesday, Obama's speech on Tuesday night was carried live on 15 U.S. broadcast and cable networks and was tape-delayed on Spanish-language channel Univision.
In an assertive start to his second term, Obama urged the sharply divided U.S. Congress to raise the minimum wage and strive for economic fairness for Americans hit by unemployment and four years of recession.
The TV audience for Obama's annual State of the Union addresses has dropped off sharply since he was first elected, from 52.4 million in 2009 to 37.7 million in 2012.
The most-watched television event in the United States is the annual Super Bowl, which drew some 108.7 million viewers earlier in February.
The Nielsen figures do not take into account viewers watching online or on mobile devices.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
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An interesting form of body language.
Now a question ..
Supposedly the Tea Party members in our Congress ran and were elected as Repubicans. However, rather than responding as a united party the Tea Party has selected a couple from it’s own to respond to the SOTU address.
This is a historic moment. In times past parties selected one representitive to speak on thier behalf following the SOTU address. Now though given the stark division in the Repubican party it takes 3?
Why isn’t the Tea Party a party unto itself? It doesn’t align with the Repubicans anymore than it does with Democrats. Efforts are made to continually highlight the difference between the elected Tea Party members and the elected Republican members. So again, why isn’t the Tea Party a party of it’s own? Why are these politicians running on the well known Repubican ticket.. then promptly distancing themselves from the party?
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