State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years

WSJ ^ | 21 Jan 15 | Byron Tau

[xzins]

And it’s the second-smallest State of the Union audience since Nielsen started collecting the data in 1993. Only Bill Clinton‘s 2000 speech drew a smaller television audience than Mr. Obama’s this year, with about 31.5 million views. In addition, a number of websites and media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, offered their own streams of the speech—increasing the total number of viewers well beyond the television audience.

But the lower audience share is part of a broader decline in interest in the speech.

[fireman15]

I wasn't making snide comments, I was making constructive criticism to whoever wrote her “speech”.

OK, I understand your point. I think that there is a good chance that she wrote the speech herself because we were told a similar story when we met her. My wife is an extremely good public speaker and gets paid to do presentations in front of large groups. She is so good at getting her audiences engaged that I almost always feel sorry for anyone else that is speaking at an event. After-wards she is generally mobbed with people telling her how much they loved her part of the program.

My wife often starts by recalling something similar to what Senator Ernst did. She doesn't do it to let people know that “she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth”. She does it to connect with her audience. I can't think of one time when she did not get a positive response using this technique.

So we respectfully disagree with your “constructive criticism” We know from experience that this type of introduction works well almost every time with almost every audience. This is true whether you like it or not. And it is also true even if the late night comedians have fun with it later. It works for my wife and I think that it has worked well for Sen. Ernst.