It is estimated that 2 million to 3 million people will throng to Washington for the inauguration of our 44th president on Tuesday.

Half of those, apparently, will be television reporters and crews.

Networks and cable outlets are planning saturation coverage of the big day, from appetizers (the morning shows) to dessert (prime-time specials chronicling the evening’s balls).

The main course will comprise the swearing-in ceremony, the inaugural address, and the traditional parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Continous network coverage is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m.

But for TV newsmen, Barack Obama’s historic run to the White House has been the gift that keeps on giving. And they are milking the grand finale for all it’s worth.

“From the train trip (from Philadelphia) on Saturday with Obama and Biden coming down on Amtrak, to the National Day of Prayer on Wednesday, this really is a five-day event we’re covering,” says David Chalian, the political director for ABC News. “We’ll be deploying all our resources.”

This particular transition process presents the anchors and commentators with rich storytelling possibilities.

“When you add Barack Obama’s unique historical significance to the challenges facing this country, which are as great as any we have faced in half a century, it gives us an opportunity to go beyond the pomp and circumstance,” says Chalian.

The news outlets began planning for this event long before Obama received the nomination in Denver.

“We had our initial meetings in April,” says NBC News executive producer of special events, Phil Alongi, who is overseeing his seventh inauguration. “We gave the (local) affiliate a heads-up, put in initial requests with the Park Service so we could set up at places like the Mall and Lafayette Park, and started lining up freelance personnel.”

Intense interest in the installment of our new president reaches from the local to the global.

BBC World News America will present live coverage of the inauguration ceremonies beginning at 11 a.m. (the same time that Jim Lehrer takes to the air for PBS). The BBC will beam its newscast to 280 million TV households around the world.

Channels as disparate as ESPN, Nickelodeon and QVC have inauguration programming scheduled.

No TV? No problem.

“You’ll see a much greater emphasis on Internet programming” on Tuesday, says Rick Kaplan, the executive producer of the “CBS Evening News.” “We’ll have a Webcast streaming and a huge number of up-to-the-minute contributions we’ll make to cbsnews.com during the day.”

CNN has worked out a deal with Facebook so that users of the social network can chat online with their friends while watching live video from the nation’s capital.

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s been an unusually festive feel to Obama’s campaign. That will continue through the inauguration.

HBO’s opening celebration from the Lincoln Memorial (7 p.m. Sunday) will alternate actors like Denzel Washington and Queen Latifah reading inspirational historic passages with musical interludes from Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Bono, Beyonce and others. The program will be provided free to anyone with cable or satellite. (Comcast is limiting access to its digital subscribers. A spokesman said last week that 90 percent of its customers have digital service.)

On Monday, the Disney Channel will present the “Kids’ Inaugural Concert (8 p.m.) from the Verizon Center with headliners Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato and Bow Wow.

Other entertainment channels join the party Tuesday night. BET has a one-hour special “Yes We Will! (8 p.m.) with performances by Common and Jazmine Sullivan.

MTV is covering the Youth Inaugural Ball (10 p.m.), where President Obama will address the young crowd. The music channel will transmit his remarks to 162 countries.

Tuesday night’s big-ticket event is the Neighborhood Ball, broadcast on ABC (8 p.m.) with talent including Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Mary J. Blige.

If the turnout in Washington is as massive as projected, the biggest challenges for the TV outlets will be to convey the scale of the event and to navigate a hopelessly gridlocked city.

“We’re planning how to cover something so vast, much larger than any inauguration we’ve ever covered,” says David Bohrman, senior vice president and D.C. bureau chief at CNN.

“Usually you have a couple of hundred thousand in front of the Capitol,” he says. “This time it’s highly likely that much of the Mall fills up. I’ve been covering inaugurations for 30 years and this is by far the most complicated one.”