Commentary

TiVo: Battleship = Viewership, Obama Moments Dominate Debate

by Joe Mandese , October 23, 2012

Barack Obama won the battle -- literally -- for TV viewers during the final televised presidential debate Monday night. Obama's "battleship moment" -- the point when he countered Mitt Romney's assertion that the U.S. Navy has fewer ships than it did in 1916 by saying, "the question is not a game of Battleship where we're counting ships" -- was the most viewed moment, according to an analysis released this afternoon by TiVo Research and Analytics.

The analysis of second-by-second, anonymized TiVo set-top data, found that all of the top five moments were attributed to Obama, including:

Rounding out the top five moments across all networks were the following:

No. 2 (9:23:43 PM ET): Moderator Bob Schieffer's question about whether President Obama had any regrets about saying it was "time to go" for Egypt's Mubarak.
No. 3 (9:50:01 PM ET): President Obama refuting reports that the U.S. and Iran have agreed "in principle" to talks about Iran's nuclear program by stating, "Those are reports in the newspaper, they are not true."
No. 4 (9:20:09 PM ET): President Obama's discussion of the US's role in organizing the Friends of Syria.
No. 5 (9:16:27 PM ET): President Obama's further comments about organizing the international community around Syria.

extrablog, politics

3 comments about "TiVo: Battleship = Viewership, Obama Moments Dominate Debate".

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Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, October 23, 2012 at 4:17 p.m.
Sarcasm seems undignified, but clearly not everyone agrees Obama appeared desperate and Romney portrayed the incumbent.
Reply

Dan Smith from PCGCampbell, October 23, 2012 at 4:47 p.m.

What debate were you watching? Obama was focused and sharp, and the sarcasm was a result of Romney continually going back to the same tired and dated argument, let alone the right's complete inability to listen to anything the President says. Romney looked intimidated and nervous throughout the debate. Obama clearly owned the night.

And the story has the President's named misspelled. It's Barack with a c.

Rob Frydlewicz from DentsuAegis, October 24, 2012 at 3:23 a.m.

Romney supporters, especially the men, hate it when their guy gets a smackdown from the cool intellectual. My favorite line during Monday's debate was when the President said "You know, we have these things called aircraft carriers". And it was said with contempt, not sarcasm, driving home the point that MR is absolutely unqualified to be Commander in Chief.