Actors, artists and producers — stand up and take a bow. Your recent protests over $45 million in arts funding cuts during the national election campaign helped deny Stephen Harper a long-desired majority government.

With the national election outcome hardly in doubt after Harper inexplicably reduced cultural subsidies and threw seats in Quebec to the Bloc Québécois, most of the drama for the Big Three Canadian networks came with who would be the first with ‘the call.’

As it happened, Global News’ Kevin Newman was the first to put his finger to his ear at 9:47 p.m. ET and project a Conservative minority government.

CTV News’ Lloyd Robertson, weighing the same counted votes and his own exit polling, called the same election result five minutes later. Canwest Broadcasting issued a press release at 10:08 p.m. to crow about being first with an election call.

The CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, by contrast, felt a need to be right rather than first as he waited until the possibility of a Conservative majority was ruled out at 10:45 p.m. before he, too, called a returned minority government for Prime Minister Harper.

And after the election call, the only other mystery on the night was Stéphane Dion’s future, after the Liberals’ dismal showing, in which they claimed 76 seats compared to the Conservatives’ 143.

Just after midnight at Liberal party headquarters in Montreal, CTV’s Roger Smith had to run a gauntlet of RCMP officers to get near to Dion, only to be told by an embittered Liberal party leader: ‘The last one I want to speak to first is CTV.’

Smith must have known at once the reason for Dion’s animus towards his network — namely CTV’s airing of his ‘redo’ interview from Halifax towards the end of the campaign.

That dust-up aside, Election 2008 made it hard for the Big Three nets to have their campaign coverage judged on ratings when the final outcome was rarely in doubt. Polls consistently called a Conservative minority going into Tuesday night. Amid a gathering market meltdown, Harper’s support hadn’t touched the 40% required popular vote for a majority government for weeks.

What little consolation for the Conservatives in Quebec came with the fact that Heritage Minister Josée Verner, who took the heat for the unpopular cuts to the arts, was returned to power.

Of course, there was the traditional drama of the Canadian networks having to count up votes across six times zones, with staggered voting hours to boot.

It was a good two hours when the polls in Atlantic Canada were closed before counted votes and declared results from Quebec, Ontario and westwards towards Alberta were suddenly dumped on hapless journos and pundits struggling to make sense of the numbers.

Within seconds, it became obvious the only happy federal party leader on the night was Gilles Duceppe, whose Bloc Québécois blocked a Conservative majority.

The Canadian nets offered few special effects. There were lots of flashed results, graphics and lit-up computer screens. But no one had a Cinerama-like super-screen as does CNN, with its massive election set fronted by Wolf Blitzer.

The CBC decided to forgo the foyer of the House of Commons for its own Toronto headquarters, where it erected a giant set that looked like the deck of the Starship Enterprise.

CTV had its traditional blue set, with a circular, shell-shaped table around which Lloyd Robertson and Craig Oliver sat with fellow journos and pundits.

It was all Kevin Newman on the multi-platform Global News set, as he ably did the anchor’s traditional job of fielding reports from the varied leaders’ headquarters and local ridings nationwide.

And if the Canadian nets offered added election night content on the Internet and mobile phones, it didn’t show in the main network telecasts, where no one in the field used a video phone or webcam to call in results.

Nor did any of the Canadian nets turn to the blogosphere, focus groups or town hall forums to gauge opinion.

Instead, it was an election night boys club, with Mansbridge, Newman and Robertson, each a seasoned journalist and ratings magnet, left by their respective networks to orchestrate their election night coverage, ask the questions and provide perspective and meaning.