Big Night 2008

NEW YORK A nonpartisan wait staff, wearing red T-shirts reading, "I chowed down at the CNN Grill," is liberally passing around corn dogs, celery sticks and mini burger appetizers. Cocktails are being sipped and glasses clink at an affair that, as the night goes on, increasingly takes on the feel of a high-brow Super Bowl party.It's McCain 8, Obama 3 a little after 7 p.m. as guests congregate in the makeshift bar area just outside the employee cafeteria within the Time Warner Center in New York, which has been set up to handle the overflow for the network's Election Night bash. CNN's original beer, Red Brew, is proving popular among early arrivals, though based on the eventual outcome, perhaps Blue Brew would have been more appropriate.Inside the cafeteria, which features floor to ceiling windows overlooking Columbus Circle and the southwest corner of Central Park, are at least a dozen flat screen TVs -- along with two large projection screens at each end. The room's been done over to reproduce the CNN Grill gathering spots which were fixtures at both the Democrat and Republican conventions this summer.Along with the finger food, a mix of CNN executives, reporters and guests are chewing over early returns from several states. Christiana Amanpour is spotted seated at a table, ignoring the nearby French fries -- and other humans-in favor of her cell phone.CNN.com Live has commandeered one corner of the room, shooting live reports while surrounded by a half-dozen political bloggers who are seated around the makeshift set while clacking away at their laptops. CNN invited 35 bloggers in all to attend the Grill party, many of whom will make appearances on CNN.com Live throughout the night in between their frantic postings. Around 7:30 p.m., as the crowd mulls the meaning of the early numbers for Indiana, CNN digital executives' BlackBerrys buzz as they track their own returns. "We've done two million live streams already," says KC Estenson, senior vp and general manager, CNN.com of CNN.com Live, which is streaming from New York and Atlanta all night. "We're getting letters from people saying, 'Thank you, I don't have a TV.'"Based on those early traffic reports, it's clear that CNN.com's on its way to having a tremendous night. During a typical 24-hour period during this emotional and heavily scrutinized election season, the site averages 65 to 70 million page views. On election day, the site was recording nearly 12 million page views an hour during the afternoon, and the 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. hour saw 22 million; 9-10 will hit a record 35.6 million. "It's a great night so far," says Estenson.Both election day and night were great for a lot of news sites. According to Nielsen Online, CNN.com reached 12.9 million unique users in the U.S. on Nov. 4, up 66 percent from 2004. MSNBC drew 12.1 million uniques, per Nielsen, while Yahoo! News reeled in 11.4 million.FoxNews.com also enjoyed a huge growth night, surging 105 percent versus '04 to 5.7 million users during a 24-hour period.For CNN, the event marked a culmination of a year-long quest to cement its position as the most integrated and technologically advanced of news organizations. "About a year ago, we sat down and took a hard look at our political coverage and how it was structured and said, 'How can CNN own politics on all platforms?'" says Estenson "We want to throw back and forth [from TV to the Web} seamlessly, engaging our audience in ways that weren't possible four years ago. 2004 was a Web election, but wasn't an integrated election."A visit to CNN's fifth floor newsroom helps illustrate just how different the network's digital approach is versus the 2004 race.The atmosphere here is far more business-intense than the party scene at the Grill. It's almost 9:30 at night, so plenty of cubicles and offices are empty, but more than a few reporters are scurrying back and forth from their desks -- most of which have TVs tuned to CNN or other networks -- to the various sets on the floor. Right in the middle of cube land is another mini studio for CNN.com Live, where anchor Melissa Long is doing a live interview with Republican blogger and former Real World cast member Rachel Campos-Duffy. Further down the vast office space, a much larger and hectic studio setup looms. Giant CNN branded squares hang from the ceiling, and a massive floor to ceiling Election Center wall (which serves as the backdrop for the network's TV coverage) cleaves the floor in half.Through a backstage corridor choked with wires and dozens of stagehands moving around large CNN signs, one can spy Anderson Cooper munching on something during a commercial break. John King's magic touch screen map is slightly obscured, but James Carville's distinctive sneakers are visible from under his desk.Alex Wellen, CNN's supervising producer, deputy political director, digital content is seated at his desk with at least six windows open on his computer screen. To his right, his TV shows that CNN has just called Ohio for Obama. To his left, his iPhone is buzzing like an angry insect.Wellen is one of several staffers whose main job is to coordinate efforts between TV and the Web, a role that didn't exist in 2005 (Anderson Cooper's show has a staffer in charge of a similar multiplatform function)."We really wanted to deliver on this watching with your laptop experience," he says of CNN's approach this election. That means "you don't just throw to the Web site at the end of a segment" without offering users anything different than they've seen on TV. Wellen gave the example of the popular CNN.com mapping tools that allowed viewers to dig deeper into state polling numbers and tinker with electoral-college possibilities on their own. "It's a cop out to punctuate a TV segment and go to the site. That's not integration. If people go to the trouble to type a URL you want a more sophisticated experience. We didn't want to send people [online] unless it was a plus-positive. You owe it to them." Back at the Grill, waiters are starting to pass around sundaes, equipped with supplemental cans of Reddi-wip. Legendary New York Post columnist Cindy Adams strolls by carrying a notepad. Former MTV VJ John Norris looks like he's heading home. Obama's got more than 200 electoral votes.Estenson is smiling. Nothing major has gone wrong so far. "It feels like it's going very well," he says. "I'd even like it to be a little closer to keep it going. Though under this calm exterior I'm shivering."Just a few years ago, such a high-trafficked event would most likely spell capacity trouble for a site like CNN.com, with some users encountering a frozen home page and creeping video loads. No such reports tonight. "We've literally had 20 meetings over the last two weeks covering every single [traffic] scenario," he says. To prepare, the site added 30-40 percent more streaming capacity, as well as a new, less cumbersome flash video player, unbeknownst to users, he said.Estenson's particularly bullish on the results for CNN.com Live, the live video product introduced to the public last year after existing for a few years as the subscription service formerly know as CNN Pipeline. By the 10 p.m. hour, Live had already delivered four million streams -- tripling the previous record set on Labor Day (it would net out at 5.3 million). "In many ways tonight is sort of a coming out party for CNN Live," says Estenson. "We're so delighted, and we hope people will continue to log on," said Live anchor Long, who added that the Live product allows her team to conduct longer, more conversational interviews and also have a direct back-and-forth with viewers. "I don't think anyone out there is doing what we are doing. I truly think this is the next generation of news."Less than five minutes to 11 p.m., and the anticipation at the Grill is building. The crowd has just watched Anderson Cooper interview a hologram of Will.i.am, Princess Leia style. Long is making her one and only visit of the night to the Grill to say hello to some friends, when she suddenly stops and turns -- probably having just received a BlackBerry message. "We've got to go," she says, bolting back to the studio.A minute or so later, CNN calls Virginia for Obama, eliciting cheers from both sides of the room. Hardly a minute later the West Coast polls close. CNN's Wolf Blitzer declares Obama has been elected the nation's 44th -- and first black -- president. The Grill roars as history is made. The cheering and clapping continues for several minutes, as people snap photos with their cell phones and raise their glasses in toasts. The ever-hustling Grill wait staff stops outside of the kitchen to watch. One young waitress tears up.Later, back on the newsroom floor, Susan Grant, evp of CNN News Services, is reflecting on the night and the election season for CNN. "Four years ago feels about 150 years ago," she says, before pausing to hear some of McCain's concession remarks.At least now everyone can get some rest, right? Not quite. The day after the election should be another humongous traffic day. Then there's the economy, two wars and any number of daunting hurdles the new president has to clear in his first 100 days. "It's not over," Grant says. Mike Shields is a senior editor covering digital media for Mediaweek.

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Big Night 2008

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