More than 32 million tune in to Obama speech on oil spill

More than 32 million people watched President Barack Obama discuss plans to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf Coast Tuesday night.

For comparison sake, 29.4 million people watched what NBC modestly called "the greatest single day in Winter Olympics history" back in February, when the U.S. captured six medals, including Lindsey Vonn's time-shifted gold-medal win of the U.S. women's downhill run, showboarder Shaun White's easy gold medal win in the men's halfpipe, and Shani Davis's second consecutive men's 1,000 meter speedskating gold.

Also for comparison sake, 24 million people tuned in for the "American Idol" finale in May.

Obama's speech, which aired nationally between 8 and 8:20 p.m., was carried live by ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC, and The Weather Channel, Nielsen reported.