Items15The creator’s order
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1952 United States presidential electionCBS election night coverage with the UNIVAC computer, November 4, 1952
One of the first nights a computer joined a results broadcast, and the original cautionary tale of election analytics. Early in the evening UNIVAC forecast an Eisenhower landslide, but its programmers judged the prediction too…0 - 2
1980 United States presidential electionNBC News election night coverage, November 4, 1980
Watch this one for the speed. NBC projected Ronald Reagan the winner at about 8:15 p.m. Eastern, nearly three hours before polls closed in the West, and Jimmy Carter conceded that evening while some Western voters were still able to cast ballots.…0 - 3
1992 United Kingdom general electionBBC election night coverage, April 9, 1992: the Basildon declaration
A lesson in how one early result can rewrite a night. Confident predictions had the Conservatives losing power, so when David Amess held Basildon, one of the first seats to declare, the studio mood shifted at once: it was the…0 - 4
1993 Canadian federal electionCBC election night coverage, October 25, 1993
The rarest thing on any results night: a governing party almost disappearing on screen. The Progressive Conservatives went from a solid majority to just two seats, Prime Minister Kim Campbell lost her own Vancouver Centre riding, and the Reform Party…0 - 5
1997 United Kingdom general electionBBC election night coverage with David Dimbleby, May 1–2, 1997: the Portillo moment
The night that gave British politics a phrase. In the early hours Labour's Stephen Twigg took Enfield Southgate from Michael Portillo, a cabinet minister tipped as a future Conservative leader, and the cameras…0 - 6
2000 United States presidential electionNetwork election night coverage, November 7–8, 2000: the Florida calls
The defining blown-projection night, and best watched on more than one network at once. NBC called Florida for Al Gore at 7:50 p.m., the others followed within minutes, and then the anchors took it back. At 2:15 a.m. Fox News…0 - 7
2002 French presidential electionFrench television's 8 p.m. first-round reveal, April 21, 2002
French results nights hinge on a single second: polls close at 8 p.m. and the screen shows the faces of the two finalists. That evening viewers watched, stunned, as Jean-Marie Le Pen appeared beside President Jacques Chirac, with Prime…0 - 8
2008 United States presidential electionCNN election night coverage, November 4, 2008: the "hologram"
The night studio gadgetry became the talking point. CNN beamed a 3-D image of correspondent Jessica Yellin from a tent in Chicago's Grant Park into its New York Election Center to talk with Wolf Blitzer, and later did the same with…0 - 9
2015 United Kingdom general electionBBC election night coverage, May 7–8, 2015: the 10 p.m. exit poll
The ten seconds at 10 p.m. are the whole show. The joint broadcasters' exit poll put the Conservatives on 316 seats, ten short of a majority, a far stronger showing than the studio expected. Paddy Ashdown, running the Liberal…0 - 10
2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendumBBC, ITV and Sky News coverage of the EU referendum results, June 23–24, 2016
A results night with no seats to win and no swingometer, so the broadcasters had to improvise. The BBC leaned on its graphics, ITV brought out a probability graph, and one critic judged Sky News's coverage the most…0
