More Americans watched GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s acceptance speech Thursday than the one by his Democratic opponent Barack Obama a week earlier. What’s more, McCain drew significantly more men in front of television sets, the Nielsen company reports.

On Thursday night, John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention bested Barack Obama’s record-breaking viewership numbers from last week by 500,000 viewers.

More than 38.9 million people tuned in to coverage of the final night of the GOP convention. In comparison, Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention drew 38.4 million viewers.

For the third night in a row, more women (19.2 million) than men (17.9 million) watched the RNC coverage. Still, McCain’s speech drew significantly more men than Obama’s acceptance speech (16.2 million). In contrast, Obama drew more women (19.9 million) than McCain 19.2 million).

White viewers also flocked to their TVs for McCain’s speech (32.2 million vs. 27 million for Obama). But among African Americans, the reverse was true: 7.5 million African Americans watched Obama’s speech last week, while just 3.1 million tuned in for McCain’s speech.