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Election Night: If You’re Watching at Home

ABC: New York City’s Times Square will transform into ABC’s election night headquarters, with the station’s election results and coverage broadcast live on the massive screens of the iconic Manhattan landmark. Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos will lead the coverage from the “Good Morning America” studios in Times Square, beginning with a special edition of “World News With Diane Sawyer” at 6:30 p.m. Katie Couric will monitor social media, and Barbara Walters will be on hand to provide historical context. Reporters will be positioned throughout battleground states, and correspondents Jake Tapper and David Muir will report from the two presidential candidates’ headquarters.

CBS: Scott Pelley will anchor the network’s election night coverage from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City beginning at 7 p.m. “Face the Nation” anchor Bob Schieffer will provide analysis, along with “CBS This Morning” co-host Norah O’Donnell. Byron Pitts will be using “virtual reality models of the House and Senate” to explain the results, while Anthony Mason will provide analysis of exit poll data. The CBS News Election Desk will make calls for Congressional and presidential results, which will be divulged to viewers through graphics and virtual storytelling tools.

CNN: For the first time, the network will anchor its Election Day coverage from Washington, D.C., where Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper will kick off “Election Night in America” at
6 p.m. Along with reports from correspondents in battleground states and the headquarters of the presidential candidates in Chicago and Boston, CNN will also have a robust presence on social media, including survey offerings on Facebook and Twitter updates and conversations through the hashtag #CNNElections.

Fox: Beginning at 6 p.m., Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly will co-anchor FOX News Channel’s live election coverage, which will feature news and commentary from correspondents and contributors including Joe Trippi, Juan Williams and Karl Rove. Similar to ABC, the coverage will be simulcast on a screen in Times Square. Greta Van Susteren will interview 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at an unspecified point in the evening.

NBC: The NBC networks will convert New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza into Democracy Plaza, their backdrop for “Decision 2012” coverage. A large map on the plaza’s iconic ice skating rink will be filled in red or blue as each state is called, and an Electoral college counter will be denoted by red and blue banners that will climb up the front of Rockefeller Center. MSNBC’s coverage will be hosted by Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews beginning at 6 p.m. and will feature analysis from Chuck Todd, who will discuss what is going on in the battleground states, and Tamron Hall, who will provide exit polling data.

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