Big Scary Monster terrorizing people out of their wits apparently makes a great lead-in for a presidential debate. This, when you think about it, makes perfect sense.
More than 51 million people watched Wednesday's third presidential debate, moderated by CBS News's treasure, Bob Schieffer.
Chris Rock was chosen to host the Oscars in a bid to draw more young male viewers.
(Ampas Via Reuters)
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Big winner? Besides Schieffer -- who knocked both candidates for a loop with his early what's-up-with-the-flu-shots question -- it definitely had to be ABC, which clocked 14.5 million viewers during its coverage of the 90-minute debate.
The alphabet network attracted more viewers to the debate than any other network, eclipsing NBC's 13.3 million, CBS's 10.7 million, Fox News Channel's 6.9 million, CNN's 3.7 million and MSNBC's 2.1 million. PBS says it averaged 3.5 million viewers, though its tally is not included in Nielsen's official count; C-SPAN's audience is not tallied.
ABC's audience was the second-biggest crowd for this year's three presidential square-offs, behind the 17.2 million logged by NBC News for the first Bush-Kerry match.
What caused ABC's sudden surge? Wednesday night's debate followed the fourth episode of J.J. Abrams's new hit "Lost," which copped more than 18 million viewers -- the series's biggest audience since its premiere.
Yes, it really does seem that this scripted drama, about a group of plane crash survivors stranded on some crazy island who are being terrorized by this Big Scary Monster, proved the perfect lead-in for a program in which two men who want to be president of the United States spun madly without stop for the camera, for an hour and a half.
In Wednesday's episode of "Lost," mystery man Locke, played by Terry O'Quinn, came face to face with Big Scary Monster.
