TVSquad

I don't know if you can hear that rush of wind across America, but that's the sigh of relief that the Presidential election is over. Either that, or it's the millions of yawns coming from viewers like you who watched election coverage through the wee hours of the morning. Many of them, like myself, tuned into coverage hosted by ABC News.

Overall, the team of Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos did well in keeping the action going when there weren't any results to be called, which was most of the time. Other than 11:00 p.m., the winner calls only made up one to two minutes of each hour. So, the rest of the time was used for analysis, exit poll results, and playing with the touch screen map. It was after Obama was declared the winner that they were able to relay the excitement of the election and what it meant for America.

I did have some issues with the coverage, which are mainly technical and aesthetic. First and foremost, the set that they used was too damn big. I was watching this on a wide-screen HDTV and even it had to strain to capture the grandness of the broadcast studio. It made for awkwardness in movement, particularly when going to the touch screen map. Charlie had to take several steps over to the map in order to talk with George. Whenever he got up he looked hunched over and stiff.

The interactive map had its issues as well. Though, some of my frustration with it may have stemmed from my experience of how smooth the CNN map has worked since the primaries. Then again, it was a more icon-driven map than CNN's Magic Map, which could be manipulated at the lightest touch. ABC's map also didn't give as much detail when it attempted to break down the vote counts by region or county. That was a bit of a disappointment because the real analysis of this outcome has come from that granularity since the beginning of the entire electoral process.

Finally, the anchor team had a pool of political analysts that surrounded them. Ready with their laptops, these folks were eager to let Charlie, as well as the viewing public, know about their opinions. But, at least during the primetime hours, the anchors really didn't go to these folks. The only one I saw make an effort to talk to them was Diane, who actually walked over to the analysts for some in-depth conversation about exit poll results. Other than that, it was just a few seconds with each for most of the evening.

ABC News has some work to do before the presidential election of 2012. If I were executive producer (and ABC, if you're reading this, I'm available) I would definitely look into updating the mapping software, shrinking the set down, and putting the analysts in a location where the anchors could easily talk with them. I would also put Diane in a short skirt and low-cut top. But, that's just the male chauvinist pig in me.