Election-night news to co-star latest technology

ByABC News
October 30, 2008, 7:01 AM

NEW YORK -- It's election night, and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer is in New York talking to an Obama campaign strategist in Chicago.

But instead of the split screen or window TV viewers might typically see during live remote interviews, the Obama spokesperson will be projected as a three-dimensional hologram, making it appear as if he or she is in the Manhattan studio with Blitzer. The network plans to conduct similar holographic interviews with representatives from the McCain campaign in Phoenix.

"Everyone is doing something virtual this election year," says CNN Senior Vice President David Bohrman, the guy who pushed the technology. But Bohrman believes CNN is going where no network has gone before by employing Hollywood-style effects. "Virtual elements in a real set look so much better than a real person in a virtual set," he says.

Election night is like the Summer Olympics and Super Bowl for network news divisions, and each is carting out eye-popping technical toys to draw viewers.

"For the big game, you see all the bells and whistles. The real challenge this year is new stuff that will travel easily on multiplatforms," says Andrew Tyndall, publisher of TyndallReport.com, which monitors television network news. "Not only must this look good on TV, but on portable devices like cellphones."

Shooting someone who isn't there

There are plenty of reasons for the gimmicks: This year's race has been intensely followed, and is expected to draw tens of millions of voters and viewers on Nov. 4. Significantly more people are expected to watch Tuesday night's results than in 2004, when about 64 million viewed election-night results on network and cable TV, according to Nielsen.

USA TODAY got an exclusive peek at the holographic technology, which CNN hopes to unveil prior to the election on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. CNN is still fine-tuning the technology.

"It's so complicated," Bohrman says. "The crew is basically shooting someone that isn't there."