New York: TV's election coverage on Tuesday was marked by complexity and care, as the networks probed each race for how it might help answer the night's looming questions: Had Democrats seized control of the House as anticipated? And would the Senate hold onto its Republican majority?
After past botched calls on winning candidates, the networks approached gingerly even early exit polls on basic issues.
''We're gonna give you what we know,'' hedged Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace, ''but you should take it with a grain of salt.''
If the networks tiptoed up to each projection, that didn't mean speculation wasn't plentiful.
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann touched on breaking news of a pop star's divorce plans when he quipped that an overwhelming Democratic victory might signal ''some sort of shift to get out of the (Iraq) war faster than Britney Spears got out of her marriage.''
The midterm coverage also served as an initiation for the broadcast networks' three anchors, including Katie Couric, the first woman to preside over a broadcast network's coverage, and the anchor of ''The CBS Evening News'' only since September. It was a complete turnover from the decades-long triumvirate of Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings that was still intact for Election Night 2004.
But Brokaw, who retired in December 2004, was invited back as a special correspondent assisting his successor in the anchor chair, Brian Williams, for NBC's coverage, which, as usual, originated from the Rockefeller Center outdoor plaza.
Couric was accompanied with analysis by Bob Schieffer, the veteran CBS newsman who gained new prominence as interim ''CBS Evening News'' anchor after Rather stepped down in March 2005.
Meanwhile, Rather (who left CBS in June to join HD Net, a cable network, where his new weekly newsmagazine premieres next Tuesday) logged some election-night airtime, too: as a guest of make-believe anchor Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's ''Midterm Midtacular'' broadcast.
Charles Gibson, officially named anchor of ABC's ''World News'' in May, occupied the chair long held by Jennings, who died in August 2005 of lung cancer.
While cable news channels were busy all day warming up for the results, the three broadcast networks, as usual, offered only limited prime-time coverage: CBS and NBC each scheduled a one-hour special at 2200 hrs (EST).
ABC had planned the same thing. But Tuesday afternoon, it announced a half-hour earlier start-time, pre-empting the sitcom ''Help Me Help You'' at 9:30 p.m. This not only gave ABC News 50 per cent more airtime, it also took advantage of the high-rated lead-in from ABC's hit, ''Dancing with the Stars.''
For its election coverage two years ago, CNN rented out the Nasdaq headquarters' studio in Times Square, with its room-length TV wall. This year, CNN originated from its own roomy, month-old studio in Manhattan equipped with sprawling TV walls _ one that measures 24 feet long by 9 feet high.
But even during commercial breaks, CNN's viewers were kept informed: The text crawl at the bottom of the screen continued, uninterrupted. Even for trigger-happy viewers, it provided an incentive to stay put.
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