Austin360 blogs > TV Blog > Archives > 2008 > November > 05 > Entry
Election finale: Oh, what a night!
The old electronic campfire did its thing again last night, didn’t it?
Millions of us huddled around televisions, watching the returns and then experiencing history in the present as Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech and John McCain conceded. Holograms nothwithstanding (explanation to come), it was a swell night for viewing.
Those of us who have been sucked into this political drama for more than a year enjoyed the magic walls, the emotional scenes and even some of the analysis. CNN’s David Bergen remains my favorite — for his calm, intelligent and articulate observations.
The broadcast networks looked to be playing catch-up with the cable networks all night. After virtually ceding campaign coverage to cable news, the Big Three were left with offering mostly their top dogs’ perspectives and a few crowd scenes. Viewers who haven’t followed the election saga on CNN, Fox or MSNBC missed out on much of the story’s rich details.
Back to the hologram disaster: In case you missed it, CNN transported reporter Jessica Yellen from Chicago to the New York studio in the form of a hologram. Why? Because, technologically speaking, they could — but not very well.
Yellen seemed to shrink in her holographic form, and she was backed by an odd-looking light. Basically she looked like a cheaply made sci-fi flick. Several people compared her unfavorably to Princess Leia of “Star Wars.” Later in the evening, CNN hologrammed rapper Will.I.Am, too. He was equally unsuccessful.
Nielsen ratings combining broadcast and cable networks’ coverage were not available Wednesday morning, but experts predict the total will top the 64 million viewers who tuned in for 2004 election night. We should know later today or early Thursday morning.
Some experts believe entertainment ratings will benefit from the close of the election. A sizable number of viewers, these experts believe, abandoned regular prime-time fare to watch campaign developments on cable news. We won’t know the truth to that theory for at least a week.
In the mean time, the exciting political drama is over, and most of us will need some time to adjust our viewing and body clocks.
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By snowed in
November 5, 2008 3:23 PM | Link to this
Actually, now that the election is over, I expect I'll read a lot more. Prime-time television is mostly dead to me.