Will be well forgotten by the time the Democratic convention is done.

and will cover the democratic convention only in passing after covering the republican convention gavel-to-gavel.

I won't be overloaded, the only part I'll probably watch is Romney's speech, Obama's speech and Clinton's speech. The rest of the drama and theatrics I'll skip.

featuring that breathy female who demands we call a candidate to ask him why he eats live kittens for breakfast.

Thank goodness for TCM.

I will likely watch their convention, but with the sound off and my old Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band record playing in the background. You can pick up a hell of a lot of information about that party by watching body language and I'll be watching closely. You don't learn a damned thing when you're listening to them yap.

I might watch Clinton's speech at our own convention, just because the man is so damned good at it.

Then my TV will be on TCM, PBS, or showing all the literary BBC videos I've been buying over the last year in preparation for this horror show.

Will they be on network TV or just the cable news outlets?

Expect them to devote about an hour a night to both conventions.
Cable news will have more. MSNBC shows will probably originate from Tampa and Charlotte, as will network newscasts.
C-Span will have gavel-to-gavel coverage.

I also think going last is better. How is this determined? Do the parties switch off every 4 years to see who goes last?

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_nominating_convention

There is no rule dictating the order, but since 1956 the incumbent party has held its convention second. Between 1864 and 1952, the Democrats went second every year (except for 1888). In 1956, when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was the incumbent, the Democrats went first, and the party out of power has gone first ever since. (Between 1936 and 1952, the Democrats were the incumbent party and went second, but it is unclear whether they went second because they held the White House or because they had always gone second.) Since 1952, all major party conventions have been held in the months of July, August or (for the first time in 2004), early September. (Election laws in some states would likely prevent conventions from moving into mid-September). In the last half of the 20th century, conventions were mostly scheduled about one month apart, often with the Summer Olympics in between, each with four days of business scheduled, with the exception of the 1972 GOP convention which was three days. Since 2008, the Democratic and Republican conventions have instead been held in back-to-back weeks following the conclusion of the Olympics.

my job is to monitor the news. I'm going to need it!