Off-Off-Year Election Request

[Joseph_Gallant]

Today (November 8th) is Election Day in two states (Virginia and New Jerzey; the latter's race for Governor has gotten quite nasty in the final days of the campaign), as well as statewide referrendum in California, and local elections in many major cities, including New York.

Although this is an "off-off-year" election (neither the White House, nor seats in Congress are at stake), it should be a major news story in those cities where elections are being held.

I say "should be" because I fear that many late local TV newscasts (11 P.M. ET/PT and 10 P.M. CT/MT on ABC/CBS/NBC stations and 10 P.M. ET/PT and 9 P.M. CT/MT on Fox, UPN and WB affiliates) in areas where elections are being contested will go as far as not to lead their late local news with the local elections in their areas.

The referrendum questions in California (which may be a prelude to a likely challenge by actor Warren Beatty to incumbent Governor Arnold Schwarzeneger next year) and the New Jersey's Governor race (not just nasty, but also very tight) will likely lead local TV newscasts tonight throughout California and in New York/Philadelphia (who between them cover New Jersey) respectively. But in many cities who are electing Mayors, City Councils, etc., I think many local TV stations may not lead their late newscasts tonight with local election results, but instead, the usual local news diet of crime, fires, and mayhem with election results "buried" a few minutes into the newscast.

Given that the broadcast networks are not planning any special coverage this evening, I don't think there will be very many network stations in areas that have local elections who will be able to pre-empt even one hour of network programming (10 to 11 P.M. ET/PT, 9 to 10 P.M. CT/MT) for a local election special.

In many areas that have local elections, the only "real" coverage of them (apart from maybe 90 seconds on the late local news) will probably be on local cable news channels (in markets that have them).

I am asking the Radio-Info.com family of contributors in areas where there are elections tonight to look at how local TV stations are covering the elections, especially how much airtime is devoted to local elections, and whether such elections in fact are the lead story on tonight's late local news.

 

[KML0224]

Depending on which TV market you're in anyway. Here in Connecticut, there's a interesting Mayor's race in Waterbury where the incumbent Mayor is a write-in candidate competing against five other people. There's also a Mayor's race today in New York City. Governor races include New Jersey and Virginia (Connecticut has one next year). On the bright side here, I can't remember the last time I went the week of Halloween without seeing one political ad!

P.S. I myself may not even vote for the first time since 1992, to be honest with you.

 

[toby]

Everyone in NYC has been going since this morning. Then again we have two big races - NYC Mayor and NJ Governor.
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[Joseph_Gallant]

Being in the Boston area, I'll contribute with an update on election-night TV coverage in my hometown.

I was not home at 8 P.M. when local polls closed; so I don't know whether or not any Boston TV stations did short updates reporting exit-poll results or not. I would be surprised, given that there were no "hot" local races, if there were no such updates.

At 10 P.M., WFXT-25 briefly led with the election (noting that the city's mayor, Tom Menino, had won re-election by a huge margin over city councillor Maura Henningan), then went to a story on the arrest of suspects in a child kidnapping. After that story, a report on a plane crash in Manchester, New Hampshire (in which a small cargo planbe crashed into a Wal-Mart; miraculously, the pilot survived) and a story on a school shooting in Tennessee, WFXT then went back to the election at 10:07, providing additional returns of races in New England and nationally.

The city's other 10 P.M. over-the-air local TV newscast, WLVI-56, led with the child kidnapping arrests. They did not mention the election until 10:05, and it was the third story (behind the child kidnapping arrests and the plane crash in Manchester, New Hampshire).

Neither WFXT nor WLVI had more than a couple of minutes of reports on the election. WFXT was the only over-the-air TV station to carry live excerpts (and I mean excerpts, less than a minute) of Mayor Menino's victory speech (which took place about 10:30).

At 11 P.M., only WBZ-4 led with the election, and they spent the first six minutes of their 11 P.M. newscast on the election. Both WCVB-5 and WHDH-7 led with the arrest of the child kidnap suspects, and WHDH ran a story on the plane crash as well, before going to the election.

WCVB had two minutes of election news at 11:04, WHDH had three minutes of election news starting at 11:05. WBZ's 11 P.M. newscast had more election news than WCVB and WHDH combined.

For those who wanted truly comprehensive coverage, they had to watch New England Cable News, which spent most of prime-time covering the off-off year election with emphasis on local races, especially in Boston.

 

[KML0224]

I completely forgot that Boston had a mayor race! All I was hearing about was NYC's Mayor race and the Governor races in New Jersey and Virginia. I do know that both Connecticut and Maine have Governor races next year, though. M. Jodi Rell (R-CT) will be running for her first full term here while NECN said that Portland Police Chief, Michael Chitwood, looks to make a run for Maine's Governor next year (don't know about Governor Baldacci yet).

 

[Matt]

Our station, which straddles the NC/VA border north of Greensboro, was almost entirely election news from 5:00pm to 10:30pm.

From 5 - 7, we had a mixture of poll reports, replays of excerpts of statements from our recent candidates forums, and a call-in segment on the reasons why some people vote and some do not (turnout was estimated at about 30% here). Also, we were hot and heavy with last-minute political ads.

At 7pm, the Virginia polls closed and we began taking live reports from reporters at three of the Elections Board offices in our viewing area, and tabulating returns. We also began monitoring the Virginia State Board of Elections website and including the statewide races in our discussions and on-air presentations.

At 7:30pm, the polls in our North Carolina counties closed and we went live to a reporter who was tabulating returns from five NC municipalities with Mayoral and City Council races.

By 9:30pm, most of the returns were in and the winners had been decided. We spent the next hour tracking down the winners in some of the more prominent races and talking to them briefly by telephone.

At 10:30 we went back to normal programming and ran results on a crawl overnight.

Our 7:30 - 8:30am morning show was all spent on recaps on the returns and replays of the candidate interviews from the night before.

Doing full-coverage election reporting on local races is testy and hectic, but the goodwill it generates with the local officials is priceless to us.

Matt Smith, Station Manager
WGSR-TV "Star-39"
Reidsville, NC

 

[bpatrick]

> Our station, which straddles the NC/VA border north of
> Greensboro, was almost entirely election news from 5:00pm to
> 10:30pm.
>
> From 5 - 7, we had a mixture of poll reports, replays of
> excerpts of statements from our recent candidates forums,
> and a call-in segment on the reasons why some people vote
> and some do not (turnout was estimated at about 30% here).
> Also, we were hot and heavy with last-minute political ads.
>
> At 7pm, the Virginia polls closed and we began taking live
> reports from reporters at three of the Elections Board
> offices in our viewing area, and tabulating returns. We
> also began monitoring the Virginia State Board of Elections
> website and including the statewide races in our discussions
> and on-air presentations.
>
> At 7:30pm, the polls in our North Carolina counties closed
> and we went live to a reporter who was tabulating returns
> from five NC municipalities with Mayoral and City Council
> races.
>
> By 9:30pm, most of the returns were in and the winners had
> been decided. We spent the next hour tracking down the
> winners in some of the more prominent races and talking to
> them briefly by telephone.
>
> At 10:30 we went back to normal programming and ran results
> on a crawl overnight.
>
> Our 7:30 - 8:30am morning show was all spent on recaps on
> the returns and replays of the candidate interviews from the
> night before.
>
> Doing full-coverage election reporting on local races is
> testy and hectic, but the goodwill it generates with the
> local officials is priceless to us.
>
> Matt Smith, Station Manager
> WGSR-TV "Star-39"
> Reidsville, NC
>
How much coverage did WDBJ, WSLS, and WSET do last night?
I would think that, with a gubernatorial election in Virginia,
those stations' coverage was pretty substantial.

 

[Matt]

> How much coverage did WDBJ, WSLS, and WSET do last night?

I'll let someone else answer that. We were busy doing our coverage that no one here thought to peek in on them.

Matt

 

[Nertz]

All the Philadelphia stations lead with the New Jersey race, then went to the Owens Eagles saga very quickly.

 

[Mark_Ericson]

> > How much coverage did WDBJ, WSLS, and WSET do last night?
>
> I'll let someone else answer that. We were busy doing our
> coverage that no one here thought to peek in on them.
>
> Matt

Nothing beyond a crawl on 10 that I saw. If there were election breaks, I didn't catch them.

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[dampier]

Because the Election Wasn't In Aruba: COVERAGE CANCELED!

> Today (November 8th) is Election Day in two states (Virginia
> and New Jerzey; the latter's race for Governor has gotten
> quite nasty in the final days of the campaign), as well as
> statewide referrendum in California, and local elections in
> many major cities, including New York.

You would have never known there was an election if you relied on the cable "news" channels. We had more election coverage of the Iraqi election than we did about our own from these nutjobs. The only thing more missing than Natalee Holloway was actual news on American cable news channels. Maybe if the election was held on Aruba, they'd cover it! Here was the rundown:

CNN: Jennifer Aniston, Alabama governor trolling for votes suggests Aruba boycott; renames his dog "Grandstand". Five second election update (read screen fast) gives CNN news edge.

MSNBC: By far the worst - Rita "Sucrets" Cosby interviewed EVERYONE. The pool cleaner who dates Natalee's hairdresser would get airtime. Obsession about Dr. Phil's psycho White Slavery ring holding Holloway in Hugo Chavez' Venezuela theory. Coming next: Interview with Natalee's cat Mr. Fluffles. Joe Scarborough had to change the name of his show to Scarborough County because that more appropriately describes his audience size. Special bonus feature: Launch of 24 hour extra diginet to continuously rerun Dateline's child pervert footage that has aired every day this week on Dan Abrams' show.

Fox: Oh please. Greta plays catchup on Holloway story... Alabama governor says Americans should not go to Aruba in order to send a message. Rest of America decides the governor of Alabama has nothing relevant to say to people of his own state, so why should the rest of us care. Extra bonus feature: bizarre French bashing with wacky prediction that France would split into Arab Muslim Republic of France and Everybody Else France. Fox wouldn't know France from French toast though so America rests easy. Bill O'Reilly bloviates about far leftwing personalities who take cheap shots at him. Oh wait, Bill saw himself in a mirror.