Democrats Edge GOP in TV Ratings

The five Republican candidates who attended Thursday’s town meeting in New Hampshire attracted almost as many television viewers as did the Democrats the night before, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Aired on CNN, the GOP forum averaged 1.5 million viewers, just under the estimated 1.6 million people who watched the Democrats on Wednesday.

But neither town meeting was any competition for programs that aired at the same time on other networks. According to Nielsen, Thursday’s Republican get-together trailed well behind NBC’s reruns of “Friends” and “Jesse” (an average of 14.2 million viewers each), CBS’ “Diagnosis Murder” (13.6 million), ABC’s “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” (9 million) and professional wrestling on UPN’s “WWF Smackdown!” (6.7 million).