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Pop CultureSeptember 23, 2017

7.30pm: Channel surfing the election coverage

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Election Night 2017: Here are our first impressions from the major election results coverage, if you are still deciding which channel to turn to.

1 NEWS Vote 17 Election Night Special

“I’m on time and a half tonight,” sighs Mike Hosking. He’s fed up, luckily Hilary appears to be fizzing in her seat. They are promising no shortage of drama tonight, and the beloved enormous white desk from the debates is back if that’s the kind of thing you are into. Also, what a vision this is:

ICONIC DUO

X Factor: Absolutely floored by this “whizz bang state-of-the-art” augmented reality technology, where Corin and Simon get amongst the changing seats of Parliament in real-time as the results come in. The future is here, I predict the ginormous desk will transform into a hovercraft by the next ad break.

FUTURISTIC MAGIC

THREE’s Decision17

If you want to see Patrick Gower standing in front of a giant screen and looking like a small child in a suit, click over the Three’s coverage.

Duncan Garner and Lisa Owen are chairing with approximately 1000 reporters in the field at party locations. Garner and Owen are experts but Garner’s lapel mic keeps brushing against his shirt and it sounds bad. “I’ll leave it to you guys cos you’re the experts,” said Winston Peters, owning all of the media through the surrogate of Lloyd Burr when asked how he predicts the results will turn out. Then he savaged Jenny Shipley who for some reason is at the same party as him. It’s good content.

X Factor: there was a cool as countdown clock when it first started and I can only assume there’ll be more cool and pointless graphics coming up.

TVNZ2’s Big Bang Theory Marathon 

Sheldon is under the weather, is wearing a slanket and drinking tea from a Camelbak. Not my President.

Māori Television’s Election Aotearoa

Very chill compared to One and Th+rEe. They began with some genuine discussion about youth voting and particularly getting the Māori youth votes through electronic voting. Was nice to hear something that wasn’t speculation. They have a reporter in Waiariki at Tamati Coffey’s (Labour) party. He’s wearing an embroidered flannel shirt and I want one.

X Factor: I don’t know about the other outlets but Māori television have a second youth panel which is good and should be more prominent.

RNZ Election17 

The friendly shepherd of the nation, John Campbell, appears to have fellow calm soul Guyon Espiner on Skype somewhere else across Auckland. The mood is relaxed. Elsewhere, there’s a weird dimly lit holding pen of experts including Russell Norman but I couldn’t make anyone else out because it was too dark.

Interestingly, our live correspondents across the country seem to be in a different timezone, but look we’ve all forgotten about daylight savings at this point so maybe they are just ahead of the curve.

X Factor: RNZ’s digital team is whipping up some downright beautiful haikus in the sidebar if you are watching online.

NZ Herald Election Night

Heather Du Plessis Allan is hosting the Herald’s live coverage on their website. It’s been playing in the background as I write and I’ve never been tempted to pay full attention. There are four experts and a lot of speculating behind laptops.

X Factor: they sometimes cut to a Newstalk ZB radio studio where hosts are interviewing people over the phone. It’s… good? Good if you have tired eyes and don’t want to stare at anything.


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