The AP’s David Bauder writes about Super Tuesday…

The Super Tuesday presidential primaries this week top off an unexpectedly thrilling and profitable month for television news with a super mystery.

One day, primaries in nearly half of the states and two contested races - it has never happened before, certainly not on this scale. November election nights are massive undertakings, but networks generally know from experience what to plan for.

This time, not so much.

But there is one section Bauder pens which doesn’t make any sense…

CNN’s prime-time weeknight viewership in January leaped 39 percent from January 2007, according to Nielsen Media Research. Both CNN and MSNBC, which was up 33 percent, have aggressively promoted their political teams. Fox News Channel’s viewership was essentially flat, up 4 percent.

“We’re pleasantly surprised by the level of interest,” said Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president. “We knew they’d be interested. We didn’t know they’d be obsessed. We’re obsessed, too, so that’s a good match.”

Looking for a way to compete against college football games on New Year’s Day, CNN created its “Ballot Bowl.” The nonstop political coverage emphasized the candidates’ own words, either in stump speeches or news conferences. Klein believes viewers are attracted to CNN’s “aggressively independent” coverage.

The “Ballot Bowl” was such a hit that CNN continued it over January weekends and, last week, substituted it for the international newscast it normally runs weekdays at noon.

Hang on. Bauder first talks about how political coverage boosting M-Fr primetime ratings but then uses as an example of the politcal ratings windfall CNN’s Ballot Bowl, which aired primarily on weekends and during the daytime. And what about all those debates that were held on weekends during January. Don’t they count? If you’re going to talk about political coverage and ratings, confining your scorecard to M-Fr primetime doesn’t paint a complete picture.

Update: Here are the numbers for Su-Sa primetime for January 2008 vs. January 2007 in Live+SD…

FNC - +9%
CNN - +42%
MSNBC - +38%

This does show that the M-Fr numbers skewed the percentage changes lower than the full 7 day primetime numbers did.