What will we all do when the election's over?

An election-obsessed friend last week told me she was prepared for a case of depressed bride syndrome -- a feeling of let-down once the big event is over, regardless of its import and outcome.

It's not like the country doesn't face a boatload of problems. Still, the dynamic will change once the winner is crowned.

I mused a while back on the disconnect between comedy shows finding comedic gold in the election and the shrinking resources that TV news devotes to politics. It's too much to expect that this gap will be narrowed.

Slate takes up the fallout for the media:

Television will be hit especially hard. Both candidates have been propping up a faltering advertising industry with hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising. During the week of Sept. 28 through Oct. 4 alone, the two candidates spent $28 million on TV ad buys. That money goes to local TV stations, some of which are owned by the networks. Absent the candidates’ funds, the local networks will have to turn to the local businesses that used to purchase the inventory. But those small businesses are the same ones being choked by a credit crisis and uncertainty about a potential Obama administration’s small-business tax code.

Cable news, too, is about to see its ratings drop. Across all three networks—MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN—daily October ratings are about twice what they were in October 2007, according to data provided to The Big Money by Nielsen. Prime-time ratings are even more impressive, two-and-a-half to three times better than those of October 2007.