Oh well...

Updated: Will Obama break 1981 Reagan record for inauguration Nielsen ratings? No.

Posted on 20 January 2009 by Robert Seidman

Final Update: The Obama inauguration was watched by 37.8 million, second only to Reagan’s 41.8 million in 1981.

Another update: still haven’t seen the viewer
numbers but James Hibberd reminded me that a household ratings point is
larger today than it was in 1981, so Reagan’s record might not be
safe after all. We’ll see!

Update: Reagan looks safe, but Obama appears headed for second most-watched inauguration.

Ronald Reagan’s inauguration twenty-eight years ago on January
20, 1981 set the inaugural ratings record, averaging almost forty-two
million (41,800,260). Will Barack Obama break the record?

I was in the nearby Safeway about five minutes after the
inauguration ended and it was a barren ghost town. But that’s a
bit anecdotal for my tastes.

We won’t likely know the results until tomorrow, but in the
meanwhile here’s some real data for today, though it is based on
Internet rather than television. According to the Silicon Alley Insider
based on data from Akamai the early numbers for the inauguration among
news web sites was that they saw 5.4 million visitors per minute.

Peak total visitors per minute were 5.4 million, making it one of
the top five events ever, trailing both the 2008 presidential election
(#1 with 8.572 million visitors per minute at peak traffic) as well as
the first day of the NCAA college basketball tournament last March (#3
with 7.01 million visitors/minute ).

We’ll have to see if Obama can dethrone Reagan as the
inaugural Nielsen ratings champ, but in the meanwhile you can see the inauguration numbers back to 1969 via the Nielsen Wire.

And here is some miscellaneous inaugural trivia.