As the recount takes place in Florida, questions are being asked in the US about the role of the big television networks in elections.

Twice the TV stations got it wrong: first by saying Gore had won Florida, then announcing Bush the victor and finally admitting, like the rest of us, they just didn't know who the winner was.

Ratings play a huge part in the election coverage and, with a dwindling interest in politics, excitement and drama are necessary if people are to stay up and watch. During the last election, when Clinton was elected for the second time, Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network decided not to have blanket coverage of the results. Instead it showed a film about a dog called Beethoven.

This time round it was going to be different. The polls showed the candidates to be neck and neck and no one was calling this contest.

The candidates might not have been very exciting, but the closeness of the election meant great television with a possible knife-edge finish.

With a growing number of news channels competing with the traditional networks and the large number of Internet sites, the competition for viewers is intense. The job of the big-name anchors is to keep the viewers tuned to their stations for as long as possible while keeping the drama going. It is a fine balance between being first, which means the viewers believe they know the result and go to bed, and holding the viewer.

That is what happened on Tuesday. Exit polls and predictions are a questionable practice in any election. In the US this is more so, as the polls close in the east well before the west. In the past, networks have has been criticised for broadcasting results before the polls closed.

On CNN a Bush strategist was critical of the networks' error, pointing out that the Florida panhandle was in a different time zone to the rest of the state. Florida was called before the polls were closed, he said.

In a political system where policies have not been an issue for decades, the horse race has become everything. Without clear differences of policy, or a media reluctant to report policy differences where they do exist, all that's left to report is the process or the character of the candidates. The process is a race; who will be first past the post. Election coverage becomes drama, with psephologists, pollsters and computer effects the stars.

The excitement of the anchors was palpable. The New York Times quoted Dan Rather exclaiming breathlessly: "The presidential race looks jar-lid tight." Tom Brokaw in NBC promised: "Stay with us, we're taking you on a bumpy ride." This is not the atmosphere in which polls are considered, where information is weighed up. Mistakes can be made, because this is showbiz.

Just as politicians appeal to the undecided, those least involved in civic life, so do the networks. The ratings depend on those who might not even have voted, those for whom politics is boring. What keeps them watching is the drama, the edge-of-the-seat nature of it all, and when neither candidate seems to have engaged the public the networks turn to the race.

It was already being predicted yesterday there will be calls to reform laws and regulations on coverage of elections. Little, however, will change. The US networks are powerful and becoming more so as mergers and takeovers produce bigger conglomerates that are increasingly monopolistic.

Predictably they will appeal to the First Amendment culture of the US and warn about the possible encroachment on press freedom. American viewers can look forward to comments like "It's cardiac arrest time in the presidential campaign," as Dan Rather was reported to have said before going to a commercial break.

Well you have to say something to stop the audience reaching for the remote.

Michael Foley is a lecturer in journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology and a media commentator