NEW YORK – In all their planning to cover Barack Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s 44th president, television networks have paid particular attention to people who must spend their day in front of a computer.
CBS News has built a special inauguration Web site to show its coverage on Jan. 20. CNN.com will have four live streams and will allow Facebook users to connect through its site. ABC is offering online archived speeches of past presidents. Fox News and MSNBC Web sites will both stream the inauguration live online.
“There are a lot of people who are going to be captivated by the entire day, and a lot of them are not going to be able to have a television set in the office, or have access to a television,” said Sean McManus, CBS News president. The online coverage “has a much higher priority than it has in the past.”
The Facebook deal is part of how CNN is experimenting to find the right way to get viewers involved with the event, much like the debate it co-sponsored during primary season with YouTube, said David Bohrman, CNN senior vice president and Washington bureau chief.
None of this means the networks are shortchanging their television plans. Like Election Night, a presidential inauguration is an event that has been in the planning for a long time . It’s even more so now, as Obama’s installation as president caps a campaign that drew extraordinary interest from viewers.
CBS’ daytime coverage on Inauguration Day stretches from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Besides the daytime ceremonies anchored by Charles Gibson, ABC will devote its entire prime-time lineup for the first time to the inauguration. For two hours, ABC will be on site at the “Neighborhood Inaugural Ball,” covering musical performances and the new president and first lady’s first dance of the night. At 10 p.m., ABC will track the other inaugural balls and report on the day’s special significance for black Americans.
The networks are preparing for an inauguration event that may be larger than anything they’ve seen before, CNN’s Bohrman said.
“I don’t think any of us realized how big this inaugural was going to be,” he said.
Coverage of the event actually begins three days earlier, when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer follows Obama’s Saturday train ride from Pennsylvania to Washington.
For those who want a realistic sense of being there, C-SPAN’s four days of coverage marks major events with no narration.
The event has attracted some extraordinary TV attention, with networks like Nickelodeon, QVC, BET and TV One planning events. The night before the inauguration, The Disney Channel will air a concert honoring military families, “Kids’ Inaugural: We Are the Future.”
