US Midterms 2018

Couldn't resist getting up in the night to watch.

I'm enjoying NBC's coverage the most. They've reverted to their old theme music which I much prefer to the one they used for the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. The set and graphics look fresher than everyone else's to me. I also think having just 5 people in the studio is better than ABC's enormous panel.

I'm surprised to see that NBC's backdrop on the screen is the Capitol rather than Rockefeller Plaza, but it looks nice.

The ABC YouTube stream is currently the network programme in a box with some extra graphics on one side. During the breaks, there's extra online presentation from the balcony. It's certainly an impressive set, but so big that it feels a bit cold to me and it does seem quite dark.

CBS has nice clean graphics, but the 6 people they've got at the desk look quite cramped.

CNN looks pretty decent but I haven't seen much of it.

And Telemundo is using a live feed of 30 Rock of their backdrop down in Miami. They do have a jib for AR pieces.

World News from Studio C with Karin Giannone has a two hour special programme with special titles and backdrop.

Preceded by one hour of The Briefing with Sally Bundock, retaining its standard marque.

I didn’t like the inconsistency with helvetica in the titles becoming Gill Sans in the grey strap.

The music was good though but why Washington got the old bbc news desk?

They were the last updated. I think the studio went HD in 2014 and had some technical core stuff done. I can’t find the tweet but one of the hosts said it was a new set. But all the viewers saw was that it was in HD.

Can't be bothered.....

you made me laugh, thats not easy

I watched CNN until about 3am and it was fast paced and very detailed when it came to results coming in but I felt it was a bit repetitive at times, especially the exchanges between Wolf Blitzer and John King at the map (excellent tech btw). It felt like sometimes Wolf wasn't listening to his colleagues and often cut John or Jake Tapper off to then repeat what they'd just said. I would have liked to have seen more lives from correspondants and more analysis from Cooper and his guests too.

In my opinion ABC News was the big loser. I actually turned off their coverage after a few minutes. The lighting was dark or just off. And because the cameras were so far away just felt.....odd. The sound was tinny. And the mega desk was just too much. I would have preferred if George Stephanopoulous got up and walked over to the person he was chatting with instead of chatting across a football pitch. I just didnt like it. The set design was ok, I just think there was some staging/lighting issues as a result of the LCD floor that used AR. In my opinion that hampered things for them.

I watched ABC's coverage on WPVI-TV in Philly and prefered the coverage from Action News when they opted out and yes they still played their 70s theme to finish each headline segment!

I have to say I never thought I'd find myself preferring NBC's slightly-tweaked Today show set to ABC's massive purpose-built effort, but that turned out to be the case.

I think that, in ABC's case, bigger didn't turn out to be better. It's a rare blip - ABC's election sets in 2008, 2012 and 2016 were the best out of all the networks in my view. For me, they're at their best when they're in the Times Square studio on election night - the location really adds to the energy. According to the NewscastStudio interview, they actively tried not to be too 'New York' this time - the cityscape background was designed to be generic. Sadly I think they lost a bit of their election night magic as a result.

I stuck with NBC's coverage most of the night, and the clean graphics, and focus on facts over opinions was refreshing compared to CNN's coverage. ABC felt more like a breakfast show in some ways. Having friendly chats with the weather guy.