I watched the entire debate, and he left much of what should have been said/defended unsaid/undefended. His stage presence was also weak. I was screaming at the television during the debate for him to answer some specific points which he never addressed.

That said a single debate is not a presidential campaign, and he has two more debates to rectify the situation. Biden obviously won the second debate on substance (still missed some opportunities) but overall covered everything he needed to cover. Unfortunately I think he cut Ryan off excessively and that did not sound good. Since I was taking notes and listening for part of the time from another room, I did not see the smiles so I can't comment on that.

My conclusions were drawn before seeing anyone in media talk about the debate.

Perhaps that's the big difference between people like us and the average American voter. We already knew of Romney's BS (tax plan, and non-existent replacement plan for the ACA), so we didn't really need Obama to clearly lay out why Romney was full of it. But for people who haven't really been paying attention, or subscribe to that idiotic philosophy that lying in politics is ok because "both sides do it", Romney's lies went undetected or even forgiven.

A debate is a bubble in which the facts/arguments brought up at the time are considered.

I will give you my best example. Romney repeated at least twice the $60B for green energy. Obama never responded (he could have talked about in a complex economy some leakage of dollars could be expected but overall this is what the program did do). The second is cutting the budget by killing Big Bird (well Governor you are 1/2000 of the way towards closing the deficit by killing all of public broadcasting (Big Bird, NPR, Ken Burns documentaries, etc). Where is the other 1999/2000 (or some such argument).

TV networks are owned by huge corporations who make their money in other areas. NBC is owned by GE who makes their money selling large military and electrical hardware to the Government. Ronald Reagan was a corporate spokesperson for GE before they made him President. GE runs Pat Buchanon and they have dabbled with Trump. They see Romney as a product just like Trump but also a means to an end -- increased military spending.

TV network barely make any money these days since there is so much advertising everywhere and TV audiences drop year by year as people go to the net, gaming, texting and Netflicks.

But my main point is what the Network owners want it much bigger than the ad revenue you are thinking about.