The nearly year-old channel had never before drawn an audience large enough to be considered statistically reliable by Nielsen.

The nearly year-old channel had never before drawn an audience large enough to be considered statistically reliable by Nielsen.

The speech’s ratings dwarfed the audience for the Summer Olympics and the season finale of “American Idol” in May.

To provide advertisers a portrait of its Olympics viewership, NBC will be relying on TAMI, an amalgam of existing yardsticks.

Fox has seen its once formidable advantage over CNN erode in this presidential election year, as both CNN and MSNBC have added viewers at far more dramatic rates.

25 million homes have at least one TV set that will go dark when the nation converts to digital television in nine months, and 10 million of those homes are “completely unready” for the switch.

The average audience for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” has fallen nearly 7 percent this year, according to Nielsen Media Research — its third straight year of decline.