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Retro Election Night Coverage

This year seems to be sadly developing as one of the worst in Presidential election histories. Name-calling on both sides. All I seem to see, especially on CNN, is 30 seconds of news, followed by 8-10 minutes of yelling from both sides. Perhaps this gets ratings, but it is irritating to me, much moreso than the past. No wonder both candidates are scoring so high in negatives.

IMO, this November 7th coverage will be watched, but anti-climatic as the candidate will be already crowned.
 
There are more than two candidates for the presidency and vice presidency of the United States.
 
Actually, CBS used a computer as far back as 1952 for its coverage of the presidential race. They called it the "electronic brain". Charles Collingwood was in charge of reporting what the computer was coming up with.
 
DavidMedzorian said:
Actually, CBS used a computer as far back as 1952 for its coverage of the presidential race. They called it the "electronic brain". Charles Collingwood was in charge of reporting what the computer was coming up with.
Click to expand...
And here's a selection of coverage from that night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjD0d8D9Ec
The interesting thing is that CBS didn't believe its own computers. The computers predicted an Eisenhower landslide early on, but CBS had anticipated a close race and started adjusting data to make it closer. It wasn't until 11pm, well after the actual vote totals started going to Eisenhower, that CBS stopped correcting the data.
 
1970s newspapers

Back in the Stone Age (AKA the 1970s), the local daily had a TV schedule grid of the local stations and their local, syndicated and network programming, I think from 6 p.m. to midnight. Usually the synopses paragraphs included above the grid listed the plots of just the network TV shows and movies. However, since there was nothing like that to watch on election night, the newspaper instead included the plots of that night's episodes of reruns from 6 to 8 p.m. That was the only night of the year that that was done.
 
installLSC said:
And here's a selection of coverage from that night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjD0d8D9Ec
The interesting thing is that CBS didn't believe its own computers. The computers predicted an Eisenhower landslide early on, but CBS had anticipated a close race and started adjusting data to make it closer. It wasn't until 11pm, well after the actual vote totals started going to Eisenhower, that CBS stopped correcting the data.
Click to expand...

The 1952 CBS election night broadcast is fascinating to see. It seems so primitive by today's standards - yet so real. A working newsroom with people actually working and getting the way of the camera in the process, like a documentary of vote counting on C-SPAN. And some famous names most of us never saw on television: Lowell Thomas, young Walter Cronkite's role model who stuck to radio after this. Don Hollenbeck, the guy depicted in the George Clooney movie who was driven to suicide by the witch hunters. Ed Murrow and Eric Sevareid drop by at the end, apparently after working radio over at 485 Madison Ave.

I'm not sure whether this broadcast came from Grand Central or Liederkranz Hall. Part of the set for Douglas Edwards and the News can be seen, so it appears to be the same studio.

McCauley and Eckardt are credited for the computer, which was located in Philadelphia where they built the first ever computer at the University of Pennsylvania. By this time, McCauley and Eckhardt has sold their company to Remington Rand, which later advertised their early machines on CBS' "What's My Line." You can see the show and the spots on Buzzr. Also by this time, John Charles Daly was over at ABC. Anybody know where to find kinescopes of Daly doing election nights or conventions online.
 
ixnay said:
By Liederkranz Hall, I assume you mean this...

http://www.liederkranzny.org/concert_hall.html

ixnay
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Yes, early on - I'm not sure until when - various CBS programs, including "Douglas Edwards with the News" were done from the hall (although the television news operation was based in the Graybar Building). At some point, "Douglas Edwards with the News" moved to Grand Central and then, when the CBS Evening News expanded to a half hour, to the newsroom in the Graybar Building.
 
If you go on YouTube, you can see over five hours of CBS' election night coverage from 1960...sourced from videotape where NBC's coverage exists only on kinescope. Walter Cronkite is the anchor and reporters include Charles Kuralt, Stuart Novin, Howard K. Smith and others. Fascinating to watch.
 
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