LABORIOUS - Who won the election watch?

Mmmm. Election. You can taste it in the air. Like when you walk past a fast food shop. It's warm musk is a presence, one which either entices or repulses depending on if you enjoy fast food, or indeed politics. Yet around election time, I think there is only one thing people are really looking forward to, and that's the election tally marathon that ensues the event. From the graphics, to the hosts, to the bickering panellists, the election coverage has long been extremely entertaining weekend viewing, considering it's a show about politics that goes for five hours.

This year, every channel threw their hat into the ring, each offering different aspects that would appeal to different people with different values. ABC appealed to the people who wanted a predictable night, and that is what they are good at. Nine appealed to the people that respect the election and like to see it supported in a serious and moral way. SBS came into it so late that their coverage just seemed to be useless, as did Ten's. Sky News' coverage probably would have been pretty good, had I had bothered to check it out. And Seven, well.... they treated the election like it was an episode of Let Loose Live.

ABC
Host: Kerry O'brien.

As retarded as Kerry O'brien looks, you have to love him. He's slower and easier to talk over than the likes of Ray Martin and Andrew O'Keefe, but at the same time, I'd rather listen to him overall. He is drenched in veteran sensibility, and is definately the best persona around to manage a panel consisting of big names like Julia Gillard and Nick Minchin. Speaking of them, while they were the most recognisable and important of the guest panellists, they were also quite proper and boring. Compared to the Jerry Springer antics of Seven's show, the aura around the ABC's coverage was "Ah yes, my grandfather would be having a ball with this."
Kerry got a little discombobulated by The Chaser as they pulled some stunts in the background, and there were technical faults, but the clean, glossy presentation and the nice, Star Trek-like set made ABC real standouts last night.

Nine
Host: Ray Martin

In my opinion, Nine won the election coverage battle. They didn't have the best graphics (ABC) or the best talking heads (Seven. Just kidding. ABC) but it wasn't below average in those departments either. Nine went for a simple look, a desk with a frame of spaced out, colourful icons and graphs. It was inoffensive and actually enjoyable. Nine employed a slight 'whoosh' noise whenever a graph would animate or change which I greatly appreciated. And, let's just get this out of the way, I heart the shredder. For some reason, I just loved it.
Laurie Oaks came and went for some reason, and even though I respect him a lot, I didn't miss him. Anyway, Ray had his legion of Channel Nine journos out in the thick of it to cut to instead, something which I thought was going to be really tacky, but was always fulfilling. At the end of every segue, I expected Ray to cut to Ben Dark or Bert Newton or Trevor Marmalade. Oh wait, they DID cut to him. And oh my god, his jokes were awful. Let's not go there.
To make up for that, they had this Liberal representative on the panel who was absolutely devastated that his party had lost, and was noticeably losing it and going nuts with denial. It was great TV.

Seven
Hosts: Mel and Kochie.

Oh jesus. Oh jesus christ. What... the HELL? Seven should just be ashamed. ASHAMED. For fuck's sake, in a word, Seven's coverage was: horrific. The boxing gloves graphics? The... the fucking cartoons running across the screen? Kochie himself is the worst fucking host on TV, so it was doomed from the start. But then they have to go and secure Andrew O'Keefe as a co-host. In some terrible club room set? And what about their graphics!? Done away with was the sleek ABC presentation, and the subtle 'whoosh' sounds of Nine. No! Big, red and tacky was the criteria for Seven, just like their innocuous logo. And the woosh sounds were so loud and frequent I felt like I was inside a fucking wind chamber. And that WOMAN! Christ, that Liberal representative that was in full defense mode at every opportunity. She spurted out salesman-like sound bites at every opportunity, she was like a typical The Apprentice contestant. The Seven coverage was toxic. I suffered from irritated eyes, nose, throat. I even think I went impotent for the night. And that was just from watching 15 minutes of it. Never again, Seven. Your light-hearted approach can go hang itself like the godless bastard it is.

Ten

Didn't bother watching this staggered response to the actual verdict. I did catch a bit of Empire Strikes Back though. It was the part where Luke meets Yoda in the swamp. I was confused, because Yoda is supposed to be 400 years old and he's all weak and puny, but just twenty years beforehand he's jumping all over the place fighting Sith Lords. Is 380 considered young, but 400 considered near death? Next time you redo the series, George, mend that plot-hole!

Verdict

At the end of the night, I had settled on Nine. Although I regularly turned to ABC. I very rarely checked Seven, and I didn't even bother with Sky, Ten and SBS. The ratings are a different story entirely, with ABC coming out as number one, Seven in second and Nine third. Ten actually beat Nine with their Star Wars counter-programming, which is a damn shame. I guess this just proves the deadly power of Koch. And the deadlier power of the idiot public.