Boffo ratings for Bush
Nearly 52 million viewers watched President Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday night -- about the same number as caught the finale of the first "Survivor."
Bush attracted nearly 12 million more people than in his first go-round before Congress a year ago. But the president fell far short -- by about 30 million viewers -- of the crowd he'd collected to hear what he had to say to Congress nine days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Tuesday night's speech, which was carried by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, also scored more viewers than all but two of President Clinton's State of the Union addresses.
In January 1998, weeks after the Monica Lewinsky story broke, 53 million tuned in to see what the guy had to say for himself. Even that was no match for Clinton's first time at bat, in 1993, when a whopping 67 million tuned in.
(Lisa de Moraes, The Washington Post)
Phil on PCN
Taped coverage of Punxsutawney Phil's emergence to predict the end of winter will air at 7 tonight on the Pennsylvania Cable Network, which is carried on most local cable systems.
(Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV Editor)
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