More than 40 million people tuned in to the Republican convention Wednesday to hear vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin introduce herself to voters.

That audience rivaled the one for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama last week. Nielsen Media Research estimated 37.2 million people watched Palin on either ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel or MSNBC. PBS estimated it had four million viewers for the speech.

Last week Obama had 38.4 million viewers on the commercial networks, topping 40 million with PBS and C-SPAN added in.

Those are bigger audiences than the “American Idol” finale or Academy Awards.

Viewers were far more interested in Palin than Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden. Biden’s speech to Democrats last week was seen by an estimated 24 million people.