Pleased with interest, networks gearing up for Super Tuesday

NEW YORK -- The Super Tuesday presidential primaries this week top off an unexpectedly thrilling and profitable month for television news with a super mystery.

One day, primaries in nearly half of the states and two contested races -- it has never happened before, certainly not on this scale. November election nights are massive undertakings, but networks generally know from experience what to plan for.

This time, not so much.

While a headache for news executives, the people who cover politics for a living can't contain their glee.

"This is just such a hell of a story," said CBS News "Face The Nation" host Bob Schieffer, happy he put off retirement to be a part of it.

News execs figured it would be an exciting political year. But they have made adjustments on the fly to capitalize on the intense public interest early on.

At no time will that be more evident than Tuesday. All three broadcast networks long ago set aside an hour for a Super Tuesday wrap-up, but ABC decided to give its entire prime-time to the story. CBS News doubled its commitment to two hours.

An ABC News-Washington Post poll taken last week found Americans nearly as excited about Super Tuesday (37 percent) as they were about the Super Bowl (40 percent). College graduates were more excited about the political contest, 53 to 33 percent.

CNN's prime-time weeknight viewership in January leaped 39 percent from January 2007, according to Nielsen Media Research. Both CNN and MSNBC, which was up 33 percent, have aggressively promoted their political teams. Fox News Channel's viewership was essentially flat, up 4 percent.

"We're pleasantly surprised by the level of interest," said Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president. "We knew they'd be interested. We didn't know they'd be obsessed. We're obsessed, too, so that's a good match."

The challenge facing news organizations Tuesday is seeing how trends develop, or even if they do, with so many states involved. The delegate count is ultimately more important than the popular vote and, particularly with the Democrats, may take a painstaking effort to sort out.

"It's going to be wild in the control room that night as exit polling comes in, as results come in and we try to figure out what it all means," said NBC News executive Phil Griffin. "You can plan all you want. We don't decide what the narrative of the night is."

Many news organizations expect to be staffed as fully Tuesday as they will be Nov. 4.

"It's a good challenge to have," Westin said. "This is a wonderful story."