Copyright Variety
Not all of CNN‘s Election Night coverage will take place on its familiar cable network. The Warner Bros. Discovery-backed news outlet will make a play for younger, digital audiences with a “live cast” on its new subscription-based “All Access” streamer, and the show will not be available to viewers who only watch traditional TV. During the program, moderator Harry Enten will lead a group that includes provocative radio host Charlamagne Tha God, conservative podcaster and author Ben Shapiro, and technology journalist Kara Swisher, among others. The group won’t sit behind a desk, but rather will hang out on couches and hash out voting returns over food and drink. “We are excited to build upon CNN’s best-in-class election coverage and provide a unique and more casual experience for subscribers to CNN’s new streaming service,” says Abigail Crutchfield, the CNN senior vice president of Washington and special-events programming, who is leading the project. The goal of the program, which sounds very unlike traditional CNN fare,” is to give streaming audiences unfiltered access to a raw, smart, engaging conversation with some of the biggest voices in media as the results unfold.” The streaming Election Night special will play out between 8:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. eastern on “All Access,” which can be viewed on CNN.com, CNN’s mobile apps and its counterparts on connected TV devices. Election Night on CNN has for years meant spending hours with anchors like John King, Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper — and it still will. But CNN, which under CEO Mark Thompson is making a concerted effort to win cord-cutting viewers who still want to get the news, seems poised to devise more non-traditional programming that will spool through different types of connections. CNN earlier this week launched a new “All Access” subscription tier that hinges on a broadband connection. The new service serves up the linear CNN feed, but also offers new ways to catch up on the news that are less reliant on familiar TV formulae tied to talent and time-slots. Subscribers can get caught up on trending topics by clicking through a collection of CNN reports on specific storylines. In recent days, CNN has served up some of its most compelling reporting — including an investigation into the missing journalist Austin Tice by overseas correspondent Clarissa Ward — on the streaming outlet, where viewers can watch it at times of their own choosing. Others have tested new formats on the eve of an election in a bid to woo the broadband crowd. During the 2024 election, Amazon’s Prime Video tapped Brian Williams to moderate a conversation-heavy Election Night hangout with a large crowd of journalists, influencers and hangers-on. The assemblage included Candy Crowley, the former host of CNN’s “State of the Union”; Abby Huntsman, the former Fox News host and panelist on ABC’s “The View”; Jessica Yellin, the veteran of CNN and ABC News; Shep Smith, known for his long run on Fox News and short tenure on CNBC; and Poppy Harlow, the former CNN anchor, who delivered observations from Paris. What’s spurring all the news experiments? Headline aficionados have an almost infinite array of choices for information and analysis, thanks to the spread of social media and the rise of independent creators who offer their expertise via newsletter or video podcast. Pew Research in September found that 56% of U.S. adults often use digital devices to get their news, compared with 32% who cited TV in similar fashion. who say they do so often. The figures suggest news sources continue to splinter: in 2020, Pew found 60% of U.S. adults often used digital devices for news, compared with 40% who often used TV. So-called “alterna-casts” have become all the rage in sports TV. ESPN has tilled new ground, for example, by having Peyton and Eli Manning host a casual show with a “hang out” feel on ESPN2 during which the football brothers analyze the “Monday Night Football” game being telecast more formally on ESPN. Amazon’s Prime Video offers several different takes on its “Thursday Night Football” telecast. During the Paris Olympics in 2024, NBC Sports offered viewers of its Peacock streamer a “Gold Zone” option that took them to various live moments in “whip around” fashion more associated with the NFL’s “Red Zone” network. Election Night on CNN’s “All Access” promises to be a little more raucous than its traditional TV counterpart. CNN has tapped some contributors who have decidedly partisan leanings and who are more accustomed to hot-talk scenarios. Other guests include Isabel Brown, who hosts “The Isabel Brown Show” with the conservative outlet Daily Wire and examines Generation Z politics, and Ana Kasparian, executive producer of “The Young Turks,” a show infused with a progressive lens on politics. Chances are even Van Jones and Scott Jennings wouldn’t get into the lather one might expect of such commentators.
