This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

Barack Obama's unique campaign infomercial was watched by more than one out of every five of American households watching TV last night, giving the programme a healthy audience share, according to preliminary ratings released today.

The 30-minute show – subtitled American Stories, American Solutions – won 21.7% of viewers in the top local markets monitored by Nielsen, the compiler of US TV ratings. The advert appeared on every major US TV network save ABC, as well as several cable channels.

With sweeping cinematography and soothing music reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's Morning in America commercials in the 1980s, the programme featured Obama meeting voters who face financial troubles and closed with a live speech by the Democrat.

At a price tag of more than $4m, the infomercial was hardly geared as a risky move, and most reactions to the advert praised its painstaking choreography.

"Every single line during that 30 minutes was something that the campaign knows works and appeals to those undecided voters," ABC analyst George Stephanopoulos, a veteran of the Clinton White House, wrote on his blog.

"What you saw here was a highly competent, professional, virtuoso performance."

Howard Wolfson, a longtime strategist for Hillary Clinton, praised Obama for mingling details with emotion. The programme "effectively interspersed geographically and ethnically diverse tales of middle-class hardship … with specific policy details," he wrote.

Many pundits pointed to the Reagan-esque nature of the advert, which was produced by Davis Guggenheim, the director of Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Like the Morning in America commercials - credited with helping Reagan win re-election in 1984 - Obama's programme was "designed to give the audience a sense of security and satisfaction; things are going to be all right," Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales wrote today.

The homage to Reagan's techniques did not sit well with every critic. Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Northeastern University in Massachusetts, described the Obama infomercial as a retread of the political advertising motifs grown outdated.

"In the world of campaign commercials, it has been 'morning in America' [a Reagan slogan] since the 1980s, and the shtick is getting tired," Schroeder wrote in an online reaction to Politico.com.

"As a 'change' candidate, Barack Obama would have been better served by production values that demonstrate a break from the past rather than the same old sun-kissed amber waves of grain."

But Schroeder conceded the spot's likely success: "On the plus side, the infomercial wisely kept its focus on the voters instead of the candidate - in that sense it was probably effective."

The tabloid newspapers of New York City added a sarcastic touch to their coverage of the programme, depicting Obama as a late-night pitchman hawking the "Obama-matic" and household products labelled "HOPE!".

One crop of decidedly unimpressed viewers last night resided at John McCain's campaign headquarters, exemplified by the reaction statement from Republican spokesman Tucker Bounds.

"As anyone who has bought anything from an infomercial knows, the sales-job is always better than the product," Bounds said. "Buyer beware."