Presidential Debate in Mississippi- Ratings fall short

The much anticipated presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama which took place at the University of Mississippi, was about 10 million viewers short of the first presidential debate in 2004 between Bush and Kerry. With McCain not making his decision of whether he would attend the debate until the morning of due to the economic crisis on Wall Street, and with the debate being on a friday night (one of the lowest tv- viewing nights of the week), it is understandable that this debate was not as widely viewed as previous presidential debates (see this website).