CNN’s All Access election night ‘watch party’ might not be the network’s future

CNN wanted to try something new on election night, and you can’t blame them.

Cable news networks – well, besides Fox News – are struggling to retain viewers, even on a night where voters were getting their first real say on Donald Trump’s second presidency.

More and more customers are cancelling their cable packages in favor of cheaper streaming services or free content on social media. So, the network recently launched a new streaming product of its own called CNN All Access – priced at $6.99 a month – that offers online access to a full menu of the network’s news and non-news content, along with a stream of CNN’s television product, something a previous incarnation lacked.

On Tuesday, CNN All Access subscribers got exclusive access to an election night broadcast – the CNN Election Livecast – that the network’s data guy and host Harry Enten likened to a “watch party”. Previewing the event on CNN’s main channel, Enten said it would be “kind of like hanging out with your best friends who know the most about politics”.

There’s no question that CNN’s cast on Tuesday night featured political experts, including commentators Ben Shapiro (the Daily Wire), Charlamagne tha God (the Breakfast Club), Ana Kasparian (the Young Turks) and the gen-Z conservative activist Isabel Brown, who also hosts a show for the Daily Wire. But the program often felt far from what was actually happening at the polls.

Throughout the two-hour program, there were few updates on the results of the election. Those watching the streaming show rather than the main CNN broadcast, which featured the network’s standard election-night fare – anchors Jake Tapper and John King pointing to maps and getting live reports from campaign celebrations – were late to find out that the network had projected Zohran Mamdani as the winner of the New York City mayoral election. (Enten had to interrupt a discussion between Shapiro and Kasparian about the white nationalist Nick Fuentes to actually share the update.)

CNN designed a set for the event that featured comfy couches, arcade games, a pop-a-shot basketball game and a foosball table. The idea was that the cast would actually have some fun, playing games while chatting politics and taking in the results. But everyone stayed glued to their seats – until the very end of the broadcast, when Enten made Shapiro play the basketball game. Neither had much success. “We have this lovely room here, and we haven’t actually utilized it at all,” Enten said. A large coffee table in the center of the room featured bowls of snacks that never seemed to get touched.

Kara Swisher, who was beamed into the room for a few minutes, perhaps too honestly, described it as “the weirdest living room I’ve ever seen”.

The panel also seemed to lack true ideological diversity, with the cast seeming to largely agree that Mamdani would struggle to actually govern – and all affirming that they viewed Joe Biden’s administration as a failure.

About an hour in, Charlamagne tha God left the panel because, Enten said, he needed to get up early the next morning for his day job. He was replaced by Tezlyn Figaro, who has appeared on the Breakfast Club.

As the event wound down, Enten struggled to actually end it because the panel was in the middle of a heated discussion about whether Mamdani was a “jihadist”.

“That, I think, is a lovely way to end this evening,” Enten said, finding a stopping point. “I think it’s been an amazingly fun time – a different experience.”

At that, in a nod to what matters most at CNN right now, Enten said he was off to spend a few hours analyzing election results on the television channel.