Obama vs. Obama on cable news

By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK -- On Monday night's cable TV news war, it was Obama vs. Obama. And Barack Obama won. Sort of.

Or rather it was Bill O'Reilly's interview with the Democratic presidential candidate on "The O'Reilly Factor" that won out in the ratings at 8 p.m., facing off with another interview Obama did with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on "Countdown."

Already "The O'Reilly Factor" had already scored big with the first part of the interview, which was conducted Thursday in York, Pa., and aired on Thursday night's "Factor." That averaged 6.6 million viewers, the program's second-highest ratings in its history.

On Monday, the second of four parts on "The O'Reilly Factor" averaged 4.6 million viewers. That compared with "Countdown" and its own Obama interview, which averaged 1.9 million viewers at the same time. The two shows will go head-to-head again tonight with their Obama interviews.

An interesting deconstruction of the dueling Obama interviews was done by the Associated Press' David Bauder, who watched both last night.

Meanwhile, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow came up strong in the debut of her new 9 p.m. program, beating CNN's "Larry King Live" for second place in the hour in viewership and the adults 25-54 demo.

"The Rachel Maddow Show" averaged 1.5 million viewers between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., while "Larry King Live" averaged 1.4 million viewers. "Rachel Maddow" had 100,000 more viewers 25-54 than King, with 483,000 for Maddow and 383,000 for King. Maddow's guest was the Washington Post's Bob Woodward.

Of course, this battle was for a distant second place. Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" won handily, with 3 million viewers, including 845,000 viewers in the demographic.

Meanwhile, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow came up strong in the debut of her new 9 p.m. program, beating CNN's "Larry King Live" for second place in the hour in viewership and the adults 25-54 demo.

"The Rachel Maddow Show" averaged 1.5 million viewers between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., while "Larry King Live" averaged 1.4 million viewers. "Rachel Maddow" had 100,000 more viewers 25-54 than King, with 483,000 for Maddow and 383,000 for King. Maddow's guest was the Washington Post's Bob Woodward.

Of course, this battle was for a distant second place. Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" won handily, with 3 million viewers, including 845,000 viewers in the demographic.

(Rachel Maddow photo by AP)

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