Online Hosts and Former TV Anchors Line Up Their Own Election Night Shows
Election Night in the United States will have a lot of new hosts this year, and many of them do not work for a TV network. Several online creators and former television presenters have booked livestreams, meaning shows broadcast live over the internet, for the midterm elections on Tuesday, 3 November.
The stream from MeidasTouch starts at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Variety reports that Scott MacFarlane will provide the coverage, joined by former MSNBC host Katie Phang.
Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza will host a livestream called "The Projection". A projection is a call on who has won a race, often made before every vote is counted. The show will appear on YouTube, X, Substack, the Votes portal run by Decision Desk HQ, and Noosphere.
Two former mainstream anchors are taking on the night together. Jim Acosta and Katie Couric, who once presented on television, will host a livestream from the University of Virginia. Couric is a former co-host of NBC's Today show, according to The Guardian. Their guests include Rahm Emanuel, Pete Buttigieg and Tara Setmayer.
Piers Morgan is travelling from London to host several nights of midterm coverage in Washington, D.C. The Guardian reports that he will host a live election-night show from the capital that runs for several hours.
Don Lemon will host a midterm show from a bar in New York City. His guests include Joy Reid and Hunter Biden.
C-SPAN, the public affairs network that normally broadcasts Congress, plans to simulcast hours of midterm coverage from The Young Turks and Patrick Bet-David. Simulcast means airing the same programme on two channels at the same time. It is one of the few places where a creator-led show will sit alongside a long-established cable channel.
For viewers, the choice this year is wide. Someone who wants to watch from a laptop can follow a host on YouTube or X. Someone who prefers a set can find the same shows on C-SPAN. The streams are running at the same hours, so a viewer can move between them without waiting for a network schedule.
Most of these shows are one-off nights, booked for the week of the vote. Several are long, and most rely on guests who are flown in or appear by video link. The hosts range from former network staff to people who built their audiences online. Each of them has a different plan for when and how to call races.
The election itself will decide what the hosts talk about. The shows will report results as they arrive, and their programmes will end when the broadcasts stop.
