The second night of the GOP National Convention featuring vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin drew a larger audience of women than Hillary Clinton’s night at the DNC last week. What’s more, the VP night in St. Paul trailed only Barack Obama’s historic night last week in terms of total viewers, the Nielsen Company reports:

More than 37.2 million people tuned in for coverage of the third night of the 2008 Republican National Convention, which featured Sarah Palin’s much anticipated national debut.

Wednesday night’s RNC broadcasts attracted just a 1.1 million fewer viewers than Barak Obama’s record-breaking speech on day four of the Democratic convention.

Coverage of day three of the GOP convention drew a large female audience (19.5 million) — 5.2 million more women than tuned in for day two of the Democratic convention, when Hillary Clinton addressed the delegates, and 6.9 million more women than watched Joe Biden accept the Democrats’ vice presidential nomination last Wednesday night.

Viewers age 55 and older also continued to dominate the RNC’s TV audience, with 25.2% of all Americans in that age group — 17.9 million people — watching Wednesday night’s coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC.