As people across the country tuned into last night’s national cliffhanger to see who would become the next President of the United States, many people found themselves favoring CNN’s coverage over the other news outlets. CNN was the first station to call the election in favor of Obama, but it also provided viewers with a number of other benefits that their competitors didn’t offer.

According to Erik Wemple of The Washington Post it was a “triumph of reporting over the sort of partisan rubbish that was available just a few clicks away on MSNBC.” Throughout the night, CNN shifted from their set with sleek maps and boards, to reporters who were in counties like Palm Beach County, where the results have historically mattered. CNN also brought coverage from key counties in all of the battleground states.


Image via Shutterstock

For those viewers watching CNN, it was easy to make predictions based on the maps and data provided. Despite the network’s liberal leanings, they did not shy away from the fact that when colored in by county, instead of by state, the majority of the country was red, with the democratic vote coming almost exclusively from major metro areas. They also noted that this election was not the landslide victory of the last election, giving Obama some cause to prove himself this time around.

The numbers aren’t official yet, but in early reports published by The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes, about 13 million people tuned into Brian Williams’ (News - Alert) coverage on NBC, 11 million people tuned into George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer’s coverage on ABC, 8.4 million people tuned into CBS News, and just under five million people tuned into Fox broadcast network. The numbers for CNN and other cable news network’s have not been released yet, but it is likely that they will blow the network news numbers out of the water.