Election Night

Election night coverage by the local television news outlets started at 4:30 p.m. with a KFMB-TV (Channel 8) reporter asking the registrar of voters about results--3 1/2 hours before the polls closed. Eight hours and 4 million shots of Pete Wilson voting later, Dianne Feinstein declared the evening a "triathlon of politics that just keeps going on and on." She got that one right.

CBS and NBC, both facing a severe slump in advertising revenues, have made the unusual decision to drop commercials from next Tuesday's election coverage in moves designed to bolster the ratings of their entertainment shows. The decision is the most sobering example yet of how the soft advertising economy is affecting the once-robust television industry. Earlier this week, ABC was unable to sell at least six spots in "Monday Night Football," usually one of the highest-rated shows of the week.

When a congressional committee grills the heads of the five largest television networks Wednesday about their error-plagued coverage of presidential election results, this much will not be in dispute: The networks screwed up. Just about everything else about election night will be in dispute. Although committee Republicans have billed their inquiry as bipartisan, emotions still run deep along party lines.

Because City Hall will not be open to provide election night results, a local restaurant will provide the evening results from the county registrar's office. City Hall, which has traditionally remained open until 11 p.m. on Election Day providing information on local issues and candidates, will close at 5 p.m. this year.

It's a theatrical flourish that might seem more at home in an Ice Capades extravaganza than in a newscast. NBC, along with its corporate siblings MSNBC and Telemundo, will be delivering election night returns from sets perched high above the Rockefeller Center skating rink -- where a 65-foot map of the U.S. has been embedded into the ice and awaits filling in with red and blue states as the evening progresses.

At 9:28 p.m. Election Night, Rose Bird sat in her Los Angeles chambers in a mid-Wilshire court, talking to the live television cameras of Channels 2 and 7 about her lopsided defeat. The embattled Chief Justice of California's Supreme Court was clear-eyed, sober-voiced and rather glamorous in a charcoal-gray dress and simple pearls. "How am I taking this?" she asked, smiling broadly for a moment. "My answer is, 'Just like a man.'

Political operatives won't be the only ones nervously awaiting the numbers from Tuesday's elections. For the three broadcast television news divisions, the 2006 midterms mark a potential watershed -- the first major news story to test viewer alliances since Katie Couric jumped to CBS this fall and joined the ranks of evening anchors.

After the last two giddy months, we probably think we've seen it all: an unprecedented recall election, a roller coaster ride of charges and challenges and court reversals and, finally, the longest and arguably the weirdest candidate list on any ballot ever. When the polls close on Tuesday, we'll see another historical first. That night, there will be 130 candidates who could scarcely have hoped for a moment that they'd be elected governor.