Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain attracted a record 38.9 million television viewers to his acceptance speech last night, surpassing Democratic rival Barack Obama and McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin.

The total exceeded the 38.4 million who watched Obama accept the Democratic nomination in Denver on Aug. 28, Nielsen Media Research said today in a statement. Palin drew 37.2 million on Sept. 3 after three days of intense media coverage.

The last night of the Republican gathering in St. Paul, Minnesota, was seen in 28.3 million homes, breaking the record of the 27.7 million who watched Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. McCain's ratings are the highest for a political convention since Nielsen began collecting data in 1960.

``This is likely to be a high turnout election,'' said Darrell West, a vice president of the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan policy research group in Washington. ``There were record turnouts in all of the caucus and primary states, we have had a record number of contributors and now we have a record number of television viewers.''

CBS, ABC, NBC and the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo broadcast McCain's speech. It was carried on cable by MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. In addition to those, Obama's address at Denver's Invesco field also aired on Black Entertainment Television and TV One, channels primarily geared to black audiences. Those networks didn't air McCain's speech.

Average Viewing

On average, 22.6 million viewers tuned into coverage of the Republican convention each day. The Republicans canceled most of the events on Sept. 1, citing Hurricane Gustav. Democrats averaged 20.4 million viewers over four days, Nielsen said.

``We're very excited about it,'' said Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser. ``40 million Americans got to see John McCain as John McCain, a great patriot who puts his country first, rather than the fictional character the Obama campaign always talks about.''

``I'm glad we had a big audience, I'm glad he had a big audience,'' David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, said in an interview. ``The more people know about our respective visions about where this country should go, the better it is for us.''

Combined, McCain and Palin, who is Alaska's first-term governor, drew 76.2 million viewers, compared with the 62.4 million who tuned in to see Obama and running mate Joe Biden, the Democratic senator from Delaware. Biden drew 24 million viewers to his Aug. 27 speech.

Falling Records

McCain's viewership also exceeded the former Republican record of 21.9 million who tuned in to the 1976 convention, when President Gerald Ford won the nomination over Ronald Reagan; and the 20.7 million who watched the 1980 Democratic convention when President Jimmy Carter beat back a challenge by Senator Edward Kennedy. The Democrats' record stood until Obama's speech.

The Republican nominee's audience last night also exceeded the typical nightly viewing for the Beijing Olympics, a separate Nielsen report showed. U.S. Olympics viewers averaged 27.7 million a night, making the games the most watched.

Nielsen didn't include viewership estimates for Public Broadcasting Service stations or C-SPAN, which also aired the political conventions.

On NBC, McCain's speech followed the National Football League's season opener between the New York Giants and Washington Redskins, which may have increased viewing, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

``Carryover from earlier programming is a phenomenon well known to broadcasters,'' Jamieson said. ``Indeed programmers set new programs into the slot after highly viewed programs for that reason. So carryover is a plausible explanation.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Andy Fixmer in Los Angeles at afixmer@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 5, 2008 18:16 EDT