ABC Debate: High Ratings, Critics Give Broadcast Poor Reviews

"ABC World News with Charles Gibson" featured a segment from correspondent David Wright on the "debate" over last night's debate. The network portrayed the controversy as a debate among commenters, rather than an onslaught of negative reporting from major news outlets. Watch the video to judge for yourself and then scroll down for more about how the debate was received.

Media critics may be panning Wednesday night's Democratic debate on ABC, but the ratings today show that millions of people outside the nation's newsrooms have an opinion of how Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos performed last night.

ABC sent out a release proclaiming the debate to be "easily the most-watched of the 2008 presidential cycle" with 10.7 million viewers.

For the 8-10 p.m. time period, this marks ABC's best Total Viewing audience since 11/28/07, its largest Adult 18-49 rating since 2/27/08, and its best Adult 25-54 rating since 1/9/08.

The first hour of Wednesday's debate ranked first in its time period among Total Viewers, Adults 18-49 and Adults 25-54. Up against Fox's "American Idol" and an original episode of CBS' "Criminal Minds" at 9 p.m., the debate retained 96% of it Total Viewing audience, retained 100% of its Adults 25-54 audience, and grew 4% among Adults 18-49 from the first hour to the second hour.

Still, the high ratings don't appear to be helping the network's reputation among the critics. HuffPost has received a huge response from bloggers about the debate. The majority are negative.

USA Today gathered reports from other outlets slamming ABC for its performance last night:

The Washington Post's TV critic says Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos "turned in shoddy, despicable performances."

"For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with," Tom Shales writes.

Time's Joe Klein says he has "slightly--well, a microscopic smidgeon--more sympathy for the gotcha-moderators from ABC than Tom Shales does." He blames the trivial nature of the questions on the trivial nature of the campaign.

Guardian America's deadlineUSA blog issues its verdict with the headline: "Worst. Debate. Ever."

USA Today leaves out David Brooks' lonely article filled with praise for the debate. For the different perspective, read Brooks' article

Comments

[ApolloniaCreed]

Why isn't this article still front page??/


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/20/debate-analysis-abc-asked_n_97599.html

[Obama4Life]

Hillary Clinton Must Explain The Praising of a Group of KKK Supporters:
http://digg.com/politics/Senator_Hillary_Clinton_Must_Explain_The_Praising_of_KKK_Grp

Goto the link to check out the story guys, I need more diggs to get this on the front page so I need you all to go there and digg the story. Hillary Clinton is such a hypocrite bashing obama for just knowing Rev. Wright and Ayers, it's about time she does some explaining for the company she keeps herself.

[aquaglass]

Barack crashed and burned in the debate.
I wish everybody would just accept that and move on.
Your excuses and his excuses for the poor perfomance dosen't cut it with most, because they are just that,... excuses.
He's better with huge crowds and teleprompters.

[redraymonds]

abc is going down, this is modern day communism

[ssmit98]

Fellow Obama supporters, this is for you:)

Breaking news! Hillary Clinton caught lying AGAIN!

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=62012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsmFDYyK4U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQZl0ao6vbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyhIBXNfqMA

[csunbean]

Obama supporters: OBAMA's Record of voting PRESENT .. not taking a stand on bills with a Yeah or a NAY can instill confidence. CHANGE requires taking a stand and Obama has . in essence not really voted more than any other Senator in History.

More importantly: Obama wrote the GLOBAL POVERTY ACT this would commit 845 BILLION dollars of the US's money and all of it would go to some U.N. Millenium that would of course probably do what is often done as in the OIL For Food program: They stold the money . Obama's bill would require the President to give up this money in according the the U.N. Millenium rules. We would be committed to giving up this money that could be used for creating jobs, or giving our citizens health care for 8 years people regardless of any increased economic problems, wars, ect in our own nation.

Is Obama is trying to legislate his churches Nonnegotiable commitment to Africa with our taxes? Information towards the middle and end of the following youtube on the program.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J30Poz_4Dm4
WHITE AND BLACK MEN and all other people please pay extra ... lots extra if you vote for Obama so this money is not taken from the working poor in our nation... We need to make our own country's foundation strong.
GOOGLE GLOBAL POVERTY ACT Obama wrote this bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J30Poz_4Dm4

[harriscrl3]

Worse debate Ever I still can't get over: Does Rev Wright Love America more than You. If that is not the DUMBEST question ever asked. How do you answer a question like this. Can he crawl into Rev's Wrights mind and know. If you want to ask about Rev Wright ask it in context with the race speech that he gave.

One of these people could be the next President of the US there is a war in Iraq there is food rioting in Haiti and parts of Asia. A pope is visiting the country and you are going to ask about flagpins WTH there isnt enough challenges going on to ask a Possible World Leader a relevant question about what's happening in our world in the US in PA.

It is NOT the Job of the Newsmedia to do the JOb of the GOP. Let them do their own swiftboating. When the media starts engaging in swiftboating a candidate we are heading into dangerous territory. Thats what the debate was a SWIFTBOATING.

What an utter embrassment the world must look at us like we are a joke. Thank goodness Obama showed annoyance at the questions he at least knows how RIDICULOUS they were.

Carol

[KDH]

Obama supporters can't handle the truth. They attack ABC because they have the journalistic integrity to actually vet Obama. Now that it's becoming clear, that Obama is not everything he seemed, Obama supporters who are in denial, have started attacking the messenger. The more they attack ABC, the more they expose the fact that Obama is damaged goods who could cost the Democrats the presidency in November. As for Obama getting hammered by Hillary....... Ahhhhhh.... poor little baby 'bama. And poor little baby 'bama supporters. Go cry to mama

[CTmom13]

send an email to Bob Schieffer’s and thank him - FINALLY a real HONEST journalist

email: [e-mail]


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-4elxJouBY&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/20/14840/3341/838/499528

These distractions need to stop

[LeftLeaner]

As much as I'm not one for gotcha politics, it was refreshing for OBAMA for "ONCE" being the recipient of this sort of exercise.

Clinton has been attacked for 15+ months, just because she's a woman.

Now, we see how Mr. Obama is handling the pressure - not very well in my opinion.

By the way, the so-called CRITICS, who are very left-leaning liberals, are alligned to Obama, so it's more personal objections than objective ones.

[Haut]

REGARDING FADUTA'S REMARKS:

No one asked Hillary about her economics, FADUTA. And, they really should have. How about "rate freeze," huh? Does that ring a bell with you? What do you have to say about that? Would you say that she didn't learn a great deal about economics at Wellesley, an "all girl" college? I'm sure you would. NOT! Still claiming to be a Republican, are you?

[bigchris]

I saw one poster's suggestion about a blackout of ABC television. That's good but we can go a step further. Compile a list of advertisers and threaten to boycott their products unless they take them off ABC programming. That's how you scare these fuckers.

[osturk]

True debates in this country are dead so "give me a break"

[LollieDotCom]

What ABC did was either unimaginably inept or they did this for a better shot at achieving their own political agenda's. If this is ineptitude, then Charlie and George are as guilty as anyone that they're raking over and they need to sit out the rest of the election.

BUT..... IF THIS WAS A CONSPIRACY THEN IT'S THE BIGGEST STORY IN THIS CAMPAIGN AND ANY NEWS AGENCY THAT ISN'T TALKING ABOUT IT HAS BEEN BOUGHT AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED.

Chris Matthews announced he was running for the senate a few days ago and suddenly the guy who's against Clinton is encouraging the yahoo vote and sounding like he's been bought.

I'm 55 and don't have health insurance. I've got a grandson who is 15. Do the math Chris. How much do --I-- care about flag pins? No. I don't. Now that you've announced your desire to be a senator and your hardball has gone, at this late hour, just the week before the Pennsylvania primary - soft - it's time you consider your own conflict of interests.

A man lacking integrity in Chris's position, and promised a senate seat for keeping politics as they'v been far too long.... . Who could shift more swing votes than him by Tues.? His Christmasy joy is our nightmare. We can't trust most of the members of the fourth estate.

BOYCOTT ANY NEWS SHOW THAT DOESN'T STAY ON POINT. NOT JUST ABC, ANY OF THEM THAT ONLY LISTEN TO DOLLARS AND/OR RATINGS AT THIS

[independentrepublicrat]

You deal with George and Charlie by blackout: Enough with the phone calls and web comments at ABC. DO NOT WATCH "ABC WORLD NEWS" OR "THIS WEEK"! Period. Not everyone has the big brother annoyance of being a Nielsen family (and you should consider yourselves thankful) but don't worry about not having that annoying azz spybox in your home; just don't watch them at all. Don't have them on your TIVOs or DVRs because these services are also monitoring viewer activity. Don't listen to anyone who tells you it doesn't matter unless you are a Nielsen household because cable companies also track customer activity. We should all just erase George and Charlie and not just for a day but at least through the election. This is how to change the wayward path of media heading towards FauxNews like behavior.

Katie Couric should have been #1 during this entire election season because she hasn't allowed biased political reporting and if a reporter attempted to take a live swipe she reigned his comment in with the opposing argument. That is how it should get done, no spin just facts. You express disapproval with ABC by making Couric #2 but CBS deserves the first place spot on evening news and Sunday morning because they remain the last holdout during this political season as the only fair and balanced network for political reporting.

[ann1]

My thoughts exactly!

[littlepuffycloud]

Katie Couric is a joke. I quit watching her when Elizabeth Smart was found and returned home. All Katie wanted to know is whether the little girl had been sexually abused. It made me sick and I realized she is no different than any other of the parasites that call themselves 'journalists'. She was just a little blonder and cuter than Geraldo Rivera. Keith Olbermann is the only journalist that doesn't seem like a bought and paid for slob.

[kennedy]

Obama has already slapped his grandmother in the face calling her a racist. Yet he uses her in his PA ads to try to con the whites.

Obama has already sold his grandmother down the river to try in a vain attempt to steal the WH. Who in his family will Obama sell out next???

[HaroldBeu]

It is interesting that people seem so content and confortable attacking a black preacher who makes angry comments about our government, but when Senator Obama talks about his white grandmother making racist remarks, that is a problem. I venture to say that if his grandmother were black and made some remarks like Rev. Wright and the Senator talked about them, there would be no problem.

He was only trying to make the point that he loved both Wright and his grandmother and that he was not going to disown them even though they both said stupid things.

[Sabreen60]

It is interesting isn't it? I wonder why?