Visible Measures Blog

For online audiences, the main event of President Obama's inauguration Monday wasn't his speech, it was Beyoncé's National Anthem.

The pop superstar's rendition of the National Anthem has generated well over 3 million True Reach views in less than 48 hours. The most-watched version of the song was uploaded by The New York Times, which has over 1.3 million views. There are over 35 clips of Beyoncé's performance across the web.

Obama's inaugural speech has generated over 880,000 True Reach views. Again, The New York Times uploaded the most-watched clip, which has over 530,000 views. Kelly Clarkson's rendition of My Country 'Tis of Thee was the third most-watched event from the inauguration online, with 730,000 True Reach views.

Compared to Obama's 2009 inauguration speech, the 2013 edition pales in comparison. In 2009, in the same timeframe, Obama's 2009 inauguration speech had seen more than 6.4 million True Reach views, over seven times more than this year's speech. The 2009 speech went on produce more than 9.8 million True Reach views.

What do you think of the results? Are you surprised that Beyoncé's performance has the most viewership online? What about the allegations that she lip-synced her performance? Could that be driving up views?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below!