The race [font=Arial, Helvetica]produced a 10.9/23 preliminary national rating/share (18.7 million viewers), according to Nielsen Media Research. FOX's 10.9 ties the highest rating ever recorded for a NASCAR race, matching the rating set for the 2002 Daytona 500 on NBC, and is up +3% vs. last year's race on NBC (10.6/24). Yesterday's 18.7 million viewers makes it the second most-watched NASCAR race ever (18.8 for the 2002 Daytona 500), the most-watched ever on FOX, and +5% better than a year ago (17.8 million). Nielsen estimates that 35.3 million Americans watched all or part of yesterday's race, another best for FOX. The 2005 Daytona 500 caps the biggest twelve month viewership period in FOX Sports' 11-year history. In the calendar year beginning with last year's NASCAR Nextel Cup race in Rockingham and ending with the 2005 Daytona 500, FOX totaled just under 1.3 billion viewers, the network's largest total ever for any twelve month period.[/font]
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