The coverage of the Super Tuesday primary elections dominates the network and cable schedules. ABC has ditched its entire prime-time lineup to begin coverage at 7 p.m., with anchors Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. CBS begins at 8 p.m. NBC and some PBS stations will come on board at 9 p.m. Look for CNN, Fox News and MSNBC to cover the primaries and caucuses all day and evening. BBC America will also provide BBC News coverage of the vote, from 6 p.m. through 11 p.m.

Watching the debates over the past months and taking note of the process of attrition and elimination that has reduced the number of candidates, it may be easy for viewers to confuse this stage of the election with “American Idol” or with the NCAA basketball brackets, where 65 boils down to a final four and then a championship game.

There’s a good chance that Americans could wake up Wednesday with both parties having chosen their eventual nominee. That’s a daunting prospect given that we’re just days past Groundhog Day and the election does not take place until early November. It seems a tad strange to have six months or so to choose a face in the crowd and then have to spend nine months with only two candidates.

Political sages used to say that voters don’t really start paying attention until after the World Series is over. Now we may be faced with our choice only three short days after the Super Bowl. If you believe that familiarity breeds contempt, this seems like a system rigged to get ugly.

This is also where the election process deviates from the sports and reality-TV model. Imagine if the Giants and Patriots had to wait nine months between their league-championship games and the Super Bowl? Or if we had 36 weeks to choose between Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis? It seems a tad belabored.

Who would want such a process? Who benefits from this electoral marathon?

Television stations do.

For the next nine months, the two remaining candidates will spend hundreds of millions, maybe more than $1 billion getting their message out there. And a lot will be spent on TV commercials. Don’t think local TV stations and cable TV stations aren’t counting on that revenue.

With those piles of money, they will fight to ensure that a government by television, of television and for television shall not perish from this earth.

¢ “Nova” (7 p.m., PBS, check local listings) repeats a memorable documentary, “The Mummy Who Would Be King,” about a 3,000-year-old relic that just may be the body of Egyptian royalty.

This pharaoh was discovered not in a tomb but in a dusty and outdated tourist attraction in the honeymoon resort city of Niagara Falls, Canada. Looted from its grave in the mid-19th century, it was consigned to a cabinet of curiosity next to the stuffed remains of a two-headed sheep and other natural oddities.

In the 1960s, a German tourist and armchair Egyptologist spotted the ancient desiccated body. His interest sparked a tabloid TV show that attracted serious scholars who unraveled the mystery of this well-traveled cadaver. When asked why nobody noticed him earlier, a female researcher replied, “Serious Egyptologists just don’t go on honeymoons.”

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Auditions continue on “American Idol” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ An ugly Christmas sweater comes in handy on “Reaper” (7 p.m., CW).

¢ The risky past of a publicly pious patient may explain her grim condition on “House” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ Mike harvests cranberries on “Dirty Jobs” (8 p.m., Discovery).

¢ Eden needs help on “Nip/Tuck” (9 p.m., FX).