78 Million Viewers For Election Night

Nielsen has released ratings for last night's election coverage, and the company reports that from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 Eastern Time last night, the average audience was 78.5 million viewers.

By comparison, 59.2 million watched during this period in 2004, and 61.6 million did so in 2000.

The average ratings for the period between 8:00 p.m. and 12:30 a.m., which included John McCain's concession and Barack Obama's victory speeches, were similar.