"Their next programs" in this case would have been whatever was scheduled to start post-NYE programming (paid programming or - *shudder* - "Comics Unleashed"), which likely would have been as jarring as anything else. And I wouldn't be surprised if many smaller local affiliates had the bare minimum staff on duty (if not running entirely off automation).
Now, why the NETWORK couldn't have vamped for 12 minutes with canned s**tkicker footage is another question entirely. On Friday, January 2, 2026 at 1:24:05 PM UTC-5 David Bruggeman wrote: > I think, even if there weren't the staff shortages that Kevin posted > about, that cutting 12 minutes of technical difficulties is still going to > require filling that gap in some way that the network and/or its affiliates > either couldn't address or lacked alternatives. > > In other words, could the affiliates have started their next programs 12 > minutes earlier or have 12 minutes of stuff they could plug in with little > advance notice? I don't know the answer, but I'm leaning towards no. > > And FWIW, at least in Sacramento they aired the countdown in both the East > Coast and West Coast timeslots. > > David > > On Friday, January 2, 2026 at 09:20:51 AM PST, Mark Jeffries < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > Wednesday night at around 11:12 p.m. ET, in the middle of Lainey Wilson > singing, CBS' New Year's Eve show from Nashville (from the producer of this > year's Kennedy Center Honors fiasco) went abruptly off the air--after a > long series of promos, New York fired up a rerun of "Matlock" (the current > Kathy Bates version, not the Andy Griffith version) and then 12 minutes > later went back to Nashville and hosts hack comic Burt Kreischer and singer > HARDY (a guy, I thought that going by one name only meant they were a woman > and was some sort of Internet influencer) saying that there was a power > outage in Nashville and joking that it wasn't their fault: > > > https://deadline.com/2026/01/cbs-nye-special-nashvilles-big-bash-tech-issues-matlock-1236659616/ > > And although one would think they could edit it out in time in Studio > City, the cockup was on the delayed West Coast telecast. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/a59a0220-1fba-49af-8a2d-92a58db130e7n%40googlegroups.com.
