Grab your broadband ringside seat to the US Election with Livestation

As the race for the White House reaches its climax, Livestation is offering a unique, interactive experience.

30 October 2008

With some of the best global news channels available in one place, Livestation viewers can benefit from a wide choice of coverage, multiple perspectives and the chance to use the Livestation chat functionality to influence how live, on-air programmes develop.

"I will be eagerly watching Livestation to see how the world watches the election of the century." Chris Cramer, Global Editor, Multimedia, Reuters News.

During the election, Livestation viewers will be able to watch the action live, on their desktops, anywhere in the world, and chat in real time with other viewers as well as journalists and producers from our partner channels such as Riz Khan of Al Jazeera. Most of our partners are planning 12-hour TV specials, offering news, analysis and studio discussions as events unfold. Here are some of the highlights of the coverage on election night.

Al Jazeera English is again particularly keen to gauge the mood of a global audience. As the drama of the election night unfolds, producers from Al Jazeera will be in the Livestation chat room gathering online reactions and feeding them directly back to the studio to be read out on air.

BBC World News David Dimbleby, one of the BBC's most experienced presenters will be hosting an election special along with Matt Frei, anchor of BBC World News America. They'll be joined in the studio by veteran newsman Ted Koppel for big picture perspective and global analysis.

euronews says it will be assessing the impact of the election from a European perspective and analysing how the outcome may influence the future relationship between Europe and America. The euronews coverage will be streamed in seven languages on Livestation.

France 24 has set up studios at the foot of the Trocadéro, where the largest American election evening outside the United States is being organized by Republicans & Democrats Abroad.

C-SPAN coverage will start at 14.00 GMT with an in-depth look at how the 2008 elections will impact the next Congress. C-SPAN will be taking the feeds from both campaigns' HQs from Chicago and Phoenix. This will most likely be interspersed with behind-the-scenes coverage, a studio host with guests and viewer calls.

The interactive part of the Livestation service is frequently being used by our partners to gauge the views of a global audience. Riz Khan uses the chat room during his show on Al Jazeera. "Interactivity is a key element of my show and we are finding more and more people want to take part by getting questions or comments to the guests that they see. Livestation is a perfect platform for this, it's very simple to use and allows our viewers to immediately comment about what is being said by the guests" he said.

Al Jazeera have hosted discussions during all the presidential debates, feeding comments directly from the Livestation chat room to the studio and adding them to the live, on screen TV output. Their senior Washington correspondent, Rob Reynolds, hosted a lively debate about the US election; you can read the (interesting) (shortened) transcript on our blog.