Baltimore Tunes In To Politics

Nielsen's preliminary ratings show that Barack Obama's 30-minute special last night garnered 21.7% of TV viewing eyeballs -- 26.4 million viewers -- across the three broadcast networks that carried it. (In comparison, about 17 million viewers, or 9% of 18-49 year olds, watched Cloris Leachman get booted off Dancing With The Stars on Tuesday.) The highest Obama viewership came in Baltimore, where 31.3% of viewers watched the infomercial.

Our David Folkenflik -- a onetime denizen of Tuscany-Canterbury -- notes that Baltimoreans also topped the list in debate-watching this year.

Who knew Charm City was such a hotbed of political TV viewing? Theories about what's behind the Baltimore numbers welcomed in the comments.