With several surprises and late returns, yesterday’s races delivered more drama than one would generally expect from an off-year election. Still, after the build up on the three cable news nets, some were disappointed with the extent of the coverage, especially if you were on the west coast.
During the 10pmET hour, WaPo’s Howard Kurtz tweeted something that others had been wondering about MSNBC’s broadcast, “The usual Countdown rerun, on Election Night?”
Rather than running a full, live “Countdown,” Lawrence O’Donnell broke in with a 20-minute update on the latest election results. Afterward, MSNBC finished the replay of Keith Olbermann’s 8pmET broadcast.
With the exception of one segment, all of Rachel Maddow’s subsequent 11pmET program was live, as was 12amET’s “Hardball.”
An MSNBC spokesperson tells TVNewser, “MSNBC was live with what needed to be live and provided coverage of all the results as they came in.”
In September, Keith Olbermann commented on his recurring absences, due to his father’s health.
As for the other networks, Fox News went to tape at MidnightET. CNN did so at 1amET, following a Midnight edition “Larry King Live.”