Local Holiday Coverage

[tyrannical bastard 3444]

Since it is the new year, and I'm in the Central Time zone, chances are that many local stations aired their own coverage either in place of or after the ball drop in New York.

 

Here's what Mobile/Pensacola had to offer....

 

WEAR had inserts of the Pelican Drop for the last 10 minutes of 2013.....from what I saw, it was a good reason why to not used bonded cellular live shots in a massive crowd of people, as their shots would break up frequently. I'm told that in past years, that it has been an absolute trainwreck complete with some vocal bombs dropped here and there. They aired the "Dick Clark" show live, as I've seen most ABC stations do in Central Time.

 

WKRG aired the "Moonpie over Mobile" show produced by Raycom, and syndicated to their stations in the Central Time Zone (and others?). The irony is that even though Raycom doesn't own a station in Mobile, they do in every other market in Alabama, and their parent company, RSA owns several of the tallest buildings in Mobile. Pretty solid show.

 

Traditionally FOX and NBC have had their coverage delayed here so the ball actually drops at midnight local time.

[Nelson R. 560]

WBTV aired their own show, from 10 until just past midnight, delaying David Letterman.

[Viper550 268]

Canada: We actually lost one this year. CityTV, last year, did concert specials in Toronto and Calgary. This year, they just simulcast NYRE (which means they can basically Syndex away the ABC feed and replace it with their own)

 

Global still did its Niagara Falls concert.

[Samantha 2878]

Nothing in Phoenix.

 

It amazes me that none of the five Phoenix stations for years now have done anything, and it's not like there aren't events to broadcast from, either.

[d247 43]

Around here, KJRH did inserts during NBC's coverage from a celebration at the Hard Rock casino here. A few years back, they did a ball drop from the radar tower on top of their building. Meanwhile, KMYT carried WFAA's show from Dallas.

[sanewsguy 509]

WOAI had their "Celebrate San Antonio" event again from 10PM-12:30AM. It's a huge production and basically all of the station's news and production staff participates in some form or another. They did show NBC's coverage of the countdown in New York live as it happened only.

 

KSAT just showed Dick Clark countdown. Since I stopped watching it after Dick Clark died, I had no idea if they showed it live or not. Last time I saw it KSAT showed the ball drop live at 11CT.

 

everyone else just stuck with network or syndies

[Mrtraveler01 737]

We don't do anything special here.

 

In years past, KDNL aired ABC's New Year's coverage on a tape-delay at 11:35 so the ball would drop at Midnight our time. But for some reason, KDNL aired it live this year which meant the ball dropped at 11 PM our time (real time). And I agree with sanewsguy, it's not the same since Dick Clark died and I can't stand Ryan Seacrest, Fergie, and Jenny McCarthy.

 

Other than that, it's just the usual network stuff. I ended up watching CNN instead.

[Chief-O 28]

WFRV ran a 2-hr special from Menasha, where they've done their own ball drop for a few years [this was the first broadcast of said event]. They also showed the NYC ball drop at 11P.

[Rusty Muck 4164]

WOIO ran coverage of the Cleveland Rocks! New Year's Eve countdown (headlined by TPiR host Drew Carey) last night.

 

I didn't even see one minute of the disaster that was ABC's NYRE, because, quite frankly, the stack of phone books used to prop up Seacrest would be more interesting.

[Viper550 268]

 

I didn't even see one minute of the disaster that was ABC's NYRE, because, quite frankly, the stack of phone books used to prop up Seacrest would be more interesting.

 

My benchmark for "disaster" is Jamie Kennedy, who thankfully did not repeat his utter trainwreck from last year.

[MorningNews 1291]

Because our annual firework show was cancelled this year due to lack of sponsorship, KTRK stayed with the Dick Clark's New Year Rockin Eve. Normally they would air it up until 10, do the local news then back to Dick Clark's at 10:30 for the East Coast ball drop then switch to local New Years coverage preceding countdown to 12 and the fireworks. Then finally back to Dick Clark for the rest of the night. Hopefully the fireworks gets a sponsor for next year. The rest of Houston KHOU(CBS) KPRC(NBC) KRIV(FOX) KXLN(Univision) stream their networks programs.

[aleckrohto 20]

WBZ aired coverage of First Night Boston from 11 to 12:15.

[JoseRM303 169]

KOMO (Seattle ABC affiliate) aired Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve from 9? - 11, local news from 11 - 11:30, then more of Dick Clark's show from 11:30 till 2:15 in the morning.

KING (Seattle NBC affliate) aired a toast to 2013 from 8 - 10, Carson Daly's special from 10 - 11, local news from 11 - 11:30, New Years at the needle from 11:35 - 12:35, then Carson Daly's show again from 12:35 - 1:35.

KIRO (Seattle CBS Affilate) - nothing

KCPQ (Seattle Fox Affiliate) nothing

[PelicanGuy 117]

WDSU did the tape delay of Carson Daly's special. WWL and WVUE used to do their own specials, but haven't done so in several years.

[LoadStar 363]

WISN repeated their "Season to Celebrate" Christmas special, then picked up an hour-delayed NYRE. I don't think anyone else did anything special. (Milwaukee doesn't have any particularly large, central, notable NY celebration.)

[johnnya2k6 171]

WSB, as they have done in years past, showed the Peach Drop (at Underground Atlanta) and Times Square side-by-side; WXIA and WAGA didn't.

 

And knowing that CBS doesn't do New Year's Eve anymore, WGCL could've cut away from Letterman for a few minutes to show the Peach Drop. But at least all four stations streamed it live online anyways.

 

For me, after years of watching the Ball Drop live at 8:00 pm in Alaska and again four hours later, I'm glad that I can finally ring in the New Year RIGHT AT MIDNIGHT IN THE EASTERN TIME ZONE!!!! And also, I was able to DVR ABC's, NBC's, and CNN's coverage all at the same time. CNN's was the best, NBC's was more like The McLaughlin Group but with a whole lot of visual aids, and we all know about ABC's.

[mvcg66b3r 97]

I read your "What does your local stations do for the 4th of July" thread and it was interesting, so I decided to start a similar thread about Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's programming.

 

Do any of your holiday specials preempt network shows (primetime or otherwise)?

[News 9 Viewer 100]

WBZ airs a First Night special on New Year's Eve that prempts a primetime lineup of reruns and a rerun of The Late Show. Last year WBZ and WSBK televised the Faneuil Hall Christmas Tree lighting about a week before Thanksgiving. The telecast aired as a half hour at 7:30 PM, so no network programming was preempted by it.

 

Last year, WMUR aired a special hour long edition of NH Chronicle, A New Hampshire Christmas at the Rocking Horse Studio. Local artists performed songs of the season at the aforementioned Rocking Horse Studio in Pittsfield. The special aired at NH Chronicle's normal time (7 PM) and was rebroadcast on Christmas Day at noon, meaning that this special didn't preempt any network programming either.

 

For many years, WCVB preempted a night of primetime reruns to show the film White Christmas.

[AaronQ 259]

WBTV airs "First Night Charlotte" on New Year's Eve and the Novant Health (formally Belk) Thanksgiving Day parade in Uptown Charlotte. Not sure what WSOC, WCNC, WCCB, and WJZY do for holiday events in the Charlotte area.

[Jess 1110]

One of the stations airs the Philadelphia fireworks on New Year's Eve. Lately it's been on KYW CBS 3, but it's also been on WCAU NBC 10 and even WPVI 6ABC.

 

For Thanksgiving, not only does WPVI 6ABC air the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade... it actually produces the parade. Technically that's a pre-emption since it goes out over whatever the network is airing.

 

Next year will mark the 20th consecutive year the Mummers Parade has aired on PHL17, but before that it was on KYW and WCAU.

[Viper550 268]

From the affiliates of Canadian networks I get on cable, only one still does a "local", network-wide special, and that is Global, with ET Canada's concert and fireworks at Niagara Falls. It used to be on CHCH, but moved to Global after CH (a.k.a. E!) got shut down/divested.

 

City used to do a New Year's concert in Toronto (which also expanded to Calgary/Mountain Time for 2013), but now they've thrown in the towel and became the first ever Canadian network to simsub New Year's Rockin' Eve (Rogers still sponsors the event, but they now only just had reporters at it). For a time, CTV actually used to simulcast the MTV one (yes, you heard that right. Thenagain, especially before the CTV/CHUM merger, they also showed the VMA's on CTV for a period)

 

CBC doesn't have any live event, but they still have the infamous Royal Canadian Air Farce specials.

[ToriElectra 291]

I know that WABC airs a Columbus Day parade every year, with a definite odd couple of hosts: Joe Piscopo and Maria Bartiromo. They also now carry coverage of the NYC Marathon and Half Marathon. Not sure if any of the other NYC stations carry anything. (And Matt, what is the Mummers Parade supposed to be about? And does it involve mummies?)

[24994J 5269]

As I alluded to in the July 4th thread, WGN and WLS pretty much dominate special programming.

 

WGN airs the Thanksgiving Day Parade and various old holiday cartoons and specials, including clips from the kid shows of yesteryear like the original Bozo's Circus.

 

WLS airs most of the parades year-round. That includes the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival in November, which is distributed to ABC stations nationwide. Not surprisingly, that event is sponsored by Disney. WLS has also aired their infamous New Years Eve 'Countdown Chicago' for almost a quarter century. That (obviously) preempts 'DCNYRE' from 11:08 to 12:05 Central Time.

[sanewsguy 509]

The big party here is Fiesta every April. The centerpiece of the two-week long event are three parades, a river parade along the River Walk, the Battle of Flowers street parade, and the Flambeau night parade. The point of the parades nowadays is just to have something "big" every year for the city to celebrate, generate economic growth, etc.

 

The parades rotate stations every couple of years. KSAT had the honors of airing it this year. KCWX, KMOL, KENS, KLRN and KABB have all had the honor of the parades in the past. For many years they were on 4, then moved to 12 for a couple years, then to 5 for over thirteen years, KABB for two, KLRN for two and now KSAT since the PBS member did not have enough money to continue producing the events themselves. KSAT had already been providing personalities and broadcast equipment to KLRN to broadcast the event, and jumped at the opportunity to air the parades because their current GM Phil Lane wants his station to deeply be involved in the community.

 

The only other two major events done here are the Downtown Christmas Tree Lighting, which KMYS has aired for a few years now, and the Celebrate San Antonio New Years Fireworks downtown, which pre-empts NBC's countdown. It has aired on WOAI for three years now, from 10:00-12:30. Previously, KENS aired the special from 11:35-12:30.

 

Other than that, we don't have anything that exciting going on which pre-empts network programming.

[News 9 Viewer 100]

 

I know that WABC airs a Columbus Day parade every year, with a definite odd couple of hosts: Joe Piscopo and Maria Bartiromo. They also now carry coverage of the NYC Marathon and Half Marathon. Not sure if any of the other NYC stations carry anything. (And Matt, what is the Mummers Parade supposed to be about? And does it involve mummies?)

 

According to the Mummers Parade site, mummers are, to put it simply, performers who march while wearing elaborate costumes to help ring in the New Year. This is a continuation of Old World traditions.