Boris Johnson, J-Lo and the world’s angriest piece of theatre: the weird ways UK TV covered the US election

Boris Johnson, J-Lo and the world’s angriest piece of theatre: the weird ways UK TV covered the US election

Which anchor is part-vampire? Whose coverage was like being trapped in a hellish marriage? And whose was total genius … against all the odds?

Unless you’re in the very top percentile of political wonks, the best way to experience the US election results is to look at your phone when you wake up, groan to yourself and then go back to sleep. This is because, when watching a US election from these drizzly shores, nothing interesting happens until about 4am.

But try telling that to the UK’s media, which has a habit of treating US elections the same way dogs look at bollards they want to wee on. Both the BBC and ITV’s coverage kicked off a bit before 11pm last night, light years before anything worthwhile was scheduled to occur. Channel 4 went off even more half-cocked, diving into its coverage at 10pm. And then there was Sky News, which by 7.30pm was broadcasting endless split-screen footage of empty polling booths and slightly floppy lawn signs, like an awful Slow TV remake of 24.

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