Americans Come Together for Change in Record Numbers Through Multiple Mediums During Democratic National Convention

Americans Come Together for Change in Record Numbers Through Multiple Mediums During Democratic National Convention

DemConvention.com Receives 2.6 Billion Hits, 3.2 Million Visits During Convention Week

Topping Olympic Ratings, More Than 38 Million Television Viewers Tune in for Obama's Speech

DENVER, Sept. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Demonstrating that Americans came together for change - both in Denver and across the country - in record numbers during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) today announced that the Convention's official Web site, DemConvention.com, received more than 3.2 million visits totaling more than 2.6 billion hits during Convention week. More than 350,000 hours of video were watched by DemConvention.com visitors as the DNCC offered live gavel-to-gavel coverage in High-Definition (HD) in both English and Spanish for the first time in Convention history.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080331/DNCCLOGO )

"We made a commitment early on to provide people with multiple ways to participate in this historic Convention," said Aaron Myers, Director of Online Communications for the DNCC. "These statistics show that our efforts paid off. We succeeded in welcoming more people to the Democratic Convention experience and bringing more people into the electoral process than ever before."

The most popular areas of the site were the homepage, the video gallery, the Convention schedule and the main index of Convention speeches. By week's end, the average Web video viewer had watched 80.4 minutes of coverage. More than 300 Convention video clips continue to be available for on-demand HD viewing at DemConvention.com. The DNCC's Convention podcast remained the most popular offering on Apple's iTunes service as late as the evening of Tuesday, September 2 - after the start of the Republican National Convention.

In addition to the more than 85,000 people in attendance at INVESCO Field at Mile High, Barack Obama's acceptance speech drew a total of 38.4 million television viewers, compared to the 34.2 million Americans that watched the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, according to Nielsen Media Research. On average, the four-day event was watched by 30.2 million television viewers, while the Olympic Games averaged 27.7 million.

The figures are the highest for a Convention since Nielsen began tracking viewership in 1960. The ratings represent a 57 percent increase over the 24.4 million who watched the final night of the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.

About the DNCC:

The 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee is the official arm of the Democratic National Committee responsible for planning and organizing the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. www.demconvention.com

Paid for by 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee, Inc.

Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080331/DNCCLOGO
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee

CONTACT: Jenni Engebretsen, Damon Jones, or Natalie Wyeth,
+1-720-362-2006, all of 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee

Web Site: http://www.demconvention.com/

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