THIS SHOW MAY BE CANCELLED - AT 8:12 P.M. ET:  If President Obama had to live or die by TV ratings, he'd be facing cancellation.  Nielsen, who knows what all of us are watching, has published the following, and sent a copy to the president's agent:

As the debate on health care in the U.S. continues, President Obama detailed his vision for health insurance reform in his second address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday September 9, 2009. The address was carried live from 8:00PM to approximately 9:06PM on 10 television networks. The sum of average audience for those networks was 32,111,596 viewers.

And now the bad news:

Viewership to last night’s address was down 38.6% from President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress on February 24, which aired from approximately 9:00PM to 10:30PM.

COMMENT:  I've known network executives.  I've worked with network executives.  Network executives are friends (?) of mine.  And if Obama had to present those numbers, on behalf of his production company, to network executives, he'd be history by tomorrow morning, replaced by "Algerian Idol."

Come to think of it, I'd like to see "Algerian Idol."

Oh, by the way, remember when President Bush made speeches?  They would rarely be carried on TV, except on some cable channels.  The Big Three normally stayed away.

But there's no bias. 

September 10, 2009