• by Wayne Friedman , September 15, 2008

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin continued to bring good ratings news to TV news operations.

 

Her interview with ABC's Charles Gibson on "World News" on Thursday night shot up the show's ratings to its best results since February-- a Nielsen preliminary 9.73 million viewers and a 2.5 rating/10 share among TV news advertisers' key 25-54 viewing demographic.

Her appearance on ABC battered NBC's "Nightly News"--a show that has been generally winning the early TV network news race. It earned 7.51 million viewers and a 2.0 rating/8 share. CBS trailed both shows with 6.2 million viewers and a 1.6/8 among 25-54 viewers.

This was the first of three interviews that Gibson has scheduled with Palin. Two others will air on Friday's "World News" and "20/20."

During the Republican National Convention the previous week, Palin gave cable network Fox News some historically big ratings results. Both Republican presidential candidate John McCain's speech Thursday night and Palin's speech Wednesday night on the network earned 9.2 million viewers, the highest-rated convention telecasts in cable news history.

Those results also tied for the third-largest telecast in Fox News history--behind George Bush's address on the eve of the Iraq invasion March 19, 2003, seen by 9.7 million viewers, and a 2004 presidential debate between George Bush and John Kerry on Sept. 30, 2004, which had 9.5 million viewers.