TV on to a winner with extended election

By ANDREW GUMBLE

LOS ANGELES - Want to know why the United States presidential election is dragging on so long? It's the ratings, stupid.

The networks and cable news stations are having a field day with the unending partisan wrangling in Florida, reporting the highest viewing figures and the strongest demand for advertising space since the Clinton impeachment imbroglio two years ago.

CNN, which had been struggling to keep its audience, has seen its viewing figures triple in the past fortnight.

NBC says its morning Today Show registered the highest ratings in the history of breakfast television in the week of the election - some 8.4 million viewers per day.

Internet news sites report record traffic. ABC's online service had 27 million hits on election night, more than double the previous record set when Kenneth Starr, the White House special prosecutor, released his report on the Monica Lewinsky scandal to Congress in September 1998.

The headlong rush to coverage is actually helping to prolong the agony further with the Government effectively moving from Capitol Hill to the television studio, with every congressman and political consultant gravitating towards the glow of the klieg lights and every issue becoming the object of enormous public scrutiny.

Herald Online feature: America votes

The US Electoral College

Florida Dept. of State Division of Elections

Supreme Court of Florida

Supreme Court of the United States

Democrats and Republicans wage war online