Debate Comparisons, Wireless Households, and Employment Advertisers: Data Potpourri

by Jack Loechner, Sep 29, 2008, 8:15 AM

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Debate Comparisons, Wireless Households, and Employment Advertisers: Data Potpourri

With the U.S. financial crisis hanging in the balance, the first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain has taken on unusual importance.  But, how did this first presidential duel of the 2008 election compare with the most-watched debates of the last half-century? Compare the 57 million who watched Friday night with TV audiences since 1976, as collected by Nielsen Media Research.

Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan's 1980 debate claimed the largest television audience since 1976, the first year that Nielsen collected TV viewership data for presidential debates. George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot's 1992 debate, and Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter's 1976 debate, round out the top three. George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis's 1988 debates and Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale's 1984 debates also made the top 10.

Presidential Debate Audience Rankings (millions)
Rank	Year	Network	Date	Candidates	Viewers (Millions)
1	1980	ABC, CBS, NBC	Oct. 28	Carter - Reagan	80.6
2	1992	ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN	Oct. 15	Bush - Clinton - Perot	69.9
3	1976	ABC, CBS, NBC	Sept. 23	Ford - Carter	69.7
4	1988	ABC, CBS, NBC	Oct. 13	Bush - Dukakis	67.3
5	1984	ABC, CBS, NBC	Oct. 21	Reagan - Mondale	67.3
6	1992	ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN	Oct. 19	Bush - Clinton - Perot	66.9
7	1988	ABC, CBS, NBC	Sept. 25	Bush - Dukakis	65.1
8	1984	ABC, CBS, NBC	Oct. 7	Reagan - Mondale	65.1
9	1976	ABC, CBS, NBC	Oct. 6	Ford - Carter	63.9
10	1976	ABC, CBS, NBC	Oct. 22	Ford - Carter	62.7
Source: Nielsen Media Research, September 2008 (There were no televised Presidential debates for the years 1972, 1968, and 1964.)

For the complete release, please visit Nielsen here.

And, a new study from The Nielsen Company says that more than 20 million U.S. telephone households (17 percent) are wireless substitutors-homes without landlines that rely solely on a mobile phone for their home telecommunications.

As the U.S. economy tightens and consumers look for ways to cut household spending, many are eyeing that landline phone bill, which averages $40 per month per landline household.  In addition to the universe of U.S. wireless substitutors, Nielsen's study reports that:

• U.S. cord cutters tend to have lower income-levels-59 percent have household incomes of $40,000 or less
• Smaller households, with just one or two residents, are more likely to cut the cord than larger households
• Moving or changing jobs are the biggest life events associated with cord cutting: 31 percent of cord cutters moved prior to cord cutting and 22 percent changed jobs
• Wireless substitutors tend to use their mobile phones more than their landline peers, 45 percent more per phone, but still save an average $33 per month in a household of one subscriber, less $6.69 for each additional wireless resident, when they cut the cord

Alison LeBreton, vice president of client services for Nielsen Mobile, said "As wireless network quality improves and unlimited calling becomes increasingly pervasive, we expect the trend toward wireless substitution to continue... "

 But wireless substitution doesn't work for everyone, says the report.  Ten percent of landline phone customers have experimented with wireless-only in their household, but then returned to landline service.  Nielsen reports that needing a landline for another service (security system, satellite TV, pay-per-view, fax machine, etc.) is the primary reason people mend the cord.

For the full paper, "Call My Cell: Wireless Substitution in the United States," please go here.

Finally, the top Online sites handling the Employment Segment in the Web Media Industry in mid-September:                                                                                   

Top 20 Advertisers in the Web Media Industry, Employment Segment (Week ending September 14, 2008 US, Home and Work)
Company	Impressions (000)	Share of all Impressions
Monster Worldwide  Inc.	459,536	82.9%
CareerBuilder  LLC	54,419	9.8%
DevelopYourCareer.com	8,372	1.5%
Careerone	5,598	1.0%
Deutsche Telekom AG	3,595	0.6%
Sigma Assessment Systems  Inc.	3,072	0.6%
Interview Mastery.com	2,873	0.5%
Yahoo! Inc.	2,768	0.5%
Dice.com  Inc.	2,247	0.4%
SnagAJob.com  Inc.	1,811	0.3%
techcareers.com	1,217	0.2%
Cox Search  LLC.	1,164	0.2%
CareerPath.com	1,070	0.2%
Trader Publishing Company	622	0.1%
ChevronTexaco Corporation	574	0.1%
Central Florida Employment Council	407	0.1%
indeed	318	0.1%
Net-Temps  Inc.	294	0.1%
VACareers.com	287	0.1%
Tenet Healthcare Corporation	253	0.0%
Total	554,336	100.0%
Source:Nielsen Online, AdRelevance

 

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