CBS, which had to stick to baseball Sunday night when the American League playoff game went into extra innings, struck out against the first presidential debate, pulling a rating of only 8.3 and an audience share of 13 in 25 major markets measured overnight by the A.C. Nielsen Co.
ABC won the timeslot, with 19/29, while NBC, which lost a few minutes of the debate in some markets to football, posted a 14.5/22.
A single Nielsen rating point in the 25-market overnight report represents 436,000 households (normally a single rating point nationwide represents 921,000 households), and a share is the percentage of sets tuned in. A single local rating point represents 30,000 households.
Due to the Columbus Day holiday, complete national ratings weren`t available and overnight market ratings were not available for CNN or PBS, which also showed the debate.
In Chicago, NBC owned-and-operated station WMAQ-Ch. 5, reversed the national major market trend, winning the timeslot with a 19.7 rating and 31 share. WLS-Ch. 7, the ABC station, was second, with 18.5/29, and CBS`s extra- inning baseball coverage on WBBM-Ch. 2 was third with 8.3/13-identical to the network`s 25-market score.
Fox affiliate WFLD-Ch. 32 and PBS station, WTTW-Ch. 11, both carried the debate, scoring 3.5/5 and 3/5, respectively.
WGN-Ch. 9 countered the debate with the movie ”Kramer vs. Kramer,” and scored a 5/9, while WPWR-Ch. 50, hit back with the teen drama ”Catwalk” and an old Three Stooges movie. Their combined ratings were 2.8/5.
