• by November 9, 2000

By Anya Khait

The viewer turnout for Tuesday night was the biggest in election night history. The cumulative national broadcast and cable rating of 40.2 with a 59 share were the highest numbers in 20 years. The three broadcast networks scored a 46.4/67 in 1980. The 40.2 million households tuning in was also the biggest number since 46.4 households that same year. More than 61.5 million viewers tuned in on broadcast and cable, based on national broadcast and cable ratings from Nielsen Media Research.

That exceeds the 57.6 million viewers who tuned in for the 1992 election returns on ABC, CBS and NBC. But CNN, which scored a 4.2 rating in '92, also drew a few million voters, so the viewership is on a par with '92.

Late night ratings won't be available until next week, and that's the real point of departure in total audience for this year's election night. There's no telling how many voters stay tuned for the mistaken projection of George Bush as the winner over Al Gore at 2:15 a.m. But the early morning drama certainly drew an audience. "We're confident this will be a record audience for an election night," said CBS ratings guru David Poltrack.

NBC scored the biggest primetime returns, with a 12.1 rating, 18 share with 18.4 million viewers. That's NBC's biggest election night audience since 1984, according to an NBC News spokeswoman. ABC ranked second this time, pulling 14.8 million viewers with a 9.5/14, compared to 21 million viewers in '92. CBS drew 13 million viewers with an 8.8/13, against 19.6 million in '92. Fox drew 4.3 million with a 2.6/4. (PBS chipped in 1.6 million viewers between 10 p.m. and midnight, with a 1.2 rating and a 2.4 share in Nielsen overnight numbers.) Late night numbers won't be available until next week.

National cable numbers indicate an additional audience of 11.1 million viewers tuning in during primetime on CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC. Most of those viewers were watching CNN, which drew a 4.7 rating and 5.8 million viewers. MSNBC scored a 3.2 rating with 2.9 million viewers, followed by Fox News with a 2.8 and 2.4 million viewers.

On the programming side, NBC's ER (Thu) was Nielsen's top rated show for the week ending November 5 with a rating of 18.1. It was followed by "Friends" (NBC, 15.2, Thu), "Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS, 13.9, Mon), "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (ABC, 13.9, Wed), "Monday Night Football" (ABC, 13.8, Mon), "Will & Grace" (NBC, 13.0, Thu), "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (ABC, 12.8, Tue), "West Wing" (NBC, 12.7, Wed), "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (ABC, 12.5, Sun), "The Practice" (ABC, 12.5, Sun), "Frasier" (NBC, 12.4, Tue), "Law & Order" (NBC, 12.2, Wed), "Cursed" (NBC, 12.0, Thu), "Just Shoot Me" (NBC, 11.9, Thu), "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (ABC, 11.8, Thu), "Becker" (CBS, 11.6, Mon), "60 Minutes" (CBS, 11.4, Sun), "NFL Showcase" (ABC, 11.1, Mon), "Judging Amy" (CBS, 10.9, Tue), "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (CBS, 10.1, Fri), "Saturday Night Live Presidential B