If the election of Barack Obama is as historic as everyone from MSNBC to Fox News Channel - and in between - seemed at last to agree it was, it's unlikely to be remembered for the graphics, or even the pundits.
Here's how they passed the time, waiting for news:
You live in a battleground state, you take your chances: Pennsylvanians, and Philadelphians in particular, got their 15 minutes last night.
On Fox News Channel, they couldn't get enough of a complaint by the McCain campaign that members of the New Black Panthers were intimidating voters at 12th and Fairmount, and when Neil Cavuto asked commentator Michelle Malkin about it, she noted that there had been problems here, too, "after the Phillies won" the World Series. And "they won," she said in a tone of disbelief.
Finnigan's Wake got a shout-out on NBC News, whose anchor, Brian Williams, noted that he knew exactly where the bar was, from his days in Philadelphia - where he worked for WCAU (Channel 10).
Best graphic: Tie between the interactive maps wielded by John King on CNN and Chuck Todd on NBC. (Though "Saturday Night Live" 's Fred Armisen had more fun with it a couple of weeks ago).
Silliest: The presidential seal that rose and fell as NBC's Ann Curry tiptoed around it on MSNBC. Even Williams, showing her green screen, called it "the Weather Channel writ large."
Weirdest: CNN's virtual set of "drawers," a stack of data that could be "opened" at a touch and which at one point, noted Soledad O'Brien, looked like a "double funnel."
Distinction without a difference: MSNBC's recasting of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as "commentators" rather than anchors probably didn't register with many viewers.
