I don't know about you, but political advertising has led me to only watch DVR'd programs, so I can fast-forward over all the childish name-calling.
Well, it finally comes to an end when the polls close this evening, with the final act played out on TV, as well. Obviously, the all-news outlets are wall-to-wall. But this mid-term election is big enough to disrupt network prime-time broadcasting tonight.
Expect updates from 7 p.m., although normal programming is scheduled to begin the night's prime-time lineup.
Things really get started at 8 p.m., when NBC and local coverage starts on Channel 4, and Fox News and local coverage starts on Channel 6.
Channel 12 begins its ABC/local coverage at 8:30, and Channel 58 kicks in at 9.
The coverage I'm waiting for doesn't start until 10 p.m., when Comedy Central goes live with an hour of "Indecision 2010" coverage, anchored by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Two public radio outlets are offering coverage on the FM dial. WHAD-FM (90.7) starts airing National Public Radio coverage at 7 tonight, with Ben Merens and Shawn Johnson anchoring state coverage at 8. Coverage continues through 2 a.m. Wisconsin Public Radio's coverage. WUWM-FM (89.7) plans to air NPR election coverage from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m., with local updates from the station's newsroom.
Over on the AM band, WISN-AM (1130) starts coverage at 6 p.m., with Fox Radio News reports and local results. By 8:30 or 9, it will be mostly local coverage, anchored by Jerry Bott, with the station's three talkers coming on to comment on the voting.
On WTMJ-AM (620), full coverage isn't scheduled to start until after the Bucks game, which begins at 7 p.m.
On radio: Milwaukee's radio market (technically Milwaukee-Racine) has slipped to 38th place in Arbitron's ranking system, with Austin, Texas, moving up to take 37th place from Brew City. Indianapolis is in 39th place. You can find the complete list here.
- WKKV-FM (100.7) scored an election eve interview with the president on Monday. Audio of V-100's Bailey Coleman's chat with Barack Obama is available here.
- Wisconsin Public Radio is looking to hire a talk show producer with at least a year's experience. The salary range is $34,000 to $46,000. You can find all the details at the Wisconsin Public Radio Web site.
- One of the country's pioneering radio stations, Pittsburgh's KDKA-AM, is celebrating its 90th birthday today. Here's a sampling of the station's long, long history.
- Mercifully, no Milwaukee radio stations have flipped to all-Christmas music just yet, but more than half a dozen have already gone to a Yule music format around the country, with five alone making the change on Monday. Here's a list, if you're interested.
A little more of Sarah Palin: TLC has released another clip from "Sarah Palin's Alaska," which may prove to the first political ad of the 2012 presidential campaign when it premieres Nov. 14:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
