The ABC News Primetime special on the life of Professor Randy Pausch won its time period last night. According to Nielsen fast nationals, the 10pm special drew 7,624,000 viewers to NBC’s 7,424,000 and CBS’s 5,326,000. In the A18-49 demo the hour drew a 2.4 rating doubling CBS’s 1.2 and also topping NBC’s 2.0 rating.
Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon computer sciences professor, died Friday from pancreatic cancer. He’s best known for delivering the Last Lecture which has been viewed 10 million times on YouTube and was turned into a best-selling book.
Producers put the special together over the weekend. It included portions of interviews Sawyer conducted this Spring featuring Pausch, his wife Jai and their three children and a new interview with Pausch’s close friend Steve Seybold.