Posted on 04/15/2024 6:22:42 AM PDT by FLNittany
Sunday night (April 14) was slated to be a triumphant first for Billy Joel. After half a century in the music business, the Piano Man was headed to prime time for his first-ever broadcast network concert special, The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden – The Greatest Arena Run of All Time.
Announced during this year’s Super Bowl and taped on March 28 during Joel’s 100th consecutive performance at the legendary New York city venue, the show was slated to run from 9-11 p.m. on CBS. Unfortunately, the network’s live coverage of the Masters golf tournament pushed back the start of the Joel concert’s airing, which meant that the climactic ending of the show was cut off for many viewers to throw to the local news.
To make matters worse, according to posts from livid viewers, the screen went black at the worst possible time, near the celebratory ending of Joel’s signature sing-along ballad, 1973’s “Piano Man.” “#BillyJoel #MSG #100 concert not only starts a half hour late, but then you cut off the last 3-4 minutes for local news to start at 1130?,” read one rage-filled tweet that opened with a not polite, four-letter salutation to the Tiffany network. “Are you serious. Absolutely pathetic decision making, on an event that’s been advertised for MONTHS, and you f–k it up.”
At press time a spokesperson for CBS had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment about the abrupt cut-away from the broadcast, which some X users compared to the infamous moment in 1968 when NBC jumped from a nail-biter New York Jets/Oakland Raiders football game to switch to children’s movie Heidi.
“CBS has been promoting the Billy Joel concert special every two minutes for WEEKS. So what better way to air it than to preempt it for a half hour and the cut him off MID-PIANO MAN? C’mon guys,” read another annoyed tweet. That same fan further explained that she’d spent “three wonderful years with CBS and I love the network dearly… but as a media professional, I am straight up confounded by this decision.”
In fan video of the moment, Joel is leaning into the denouement of the song, singing, “And the piano it sounds like a carnival/ And the microphone smells like a beer,” amid footage of fans at the MSG show singing along and cheering as the screen abruptly jumps to local news. To be fair, the cut-off came near the end of the final verse, with just a round of choruses, and around a minute, left to go. According to one report, the edit only affected viewers in the Eastern and Central time zones.
While CBS has not issued a statement so far, one of the affected stations offered an apology, with 10 Tampa Bay sport director Evan Closky writing, “As a man who grew up right next to Billy Joel’s hometown, who went to The Last Play at Shea, it was my duty to apologize to everyone about cutting off our telecast of Billy Joel tonight. Not to get into the weeds, but there was a special report after the Masters and it wasn’t accounted for by the powers that be beyond this building.”
Joel will be back at MSG on April 26 and May 9 for two more gigs at his home-away-from-home, before hitting the road this summer for a run of baseball stadium gigs that run through November.
LOL...Bet that made Dr. Billy feel better...
“Pay-to-Play Ho Nation, once the United States
That’s why.
The Price is Right was cut short at the beginning with the news of OJ going to hell.
Orca’s girlfriend was front and center. Who cares. Hell is hotter now with him there.
Was it the national feed or just the choice of local station directors?
LOL...
No, no!
I always had a lost of mistrust for Billboard's HOT 100 chart. Over the years, they have changed their methodologies of determining what was a hit so many times that you simply cannot compare one era to aother.
Back in the early 1970s, airplay on just a few AM Top 40 stations and record sales in a relatively small sampling of retail record stores determined where a record sat on the charts. Also, in order to chart on the HOT 100, the song had to be an officially released single (not just an album track).
So it was very easily manipulated. If you could get a handful of key stations to play the new Barry Manilow song and send a pallet of the 45 singles to each of the key record stores at a discount (to the stores), you could get that song up in the Top 10 in no time at all.
Nowadays, chart placement is determined mostly by how many times a song is streamed on the various platforms like Spotify and Pandora. It's overall a better way of doing things but the charts look a lot stranger these days, as a new album release by an established superstar can have every single album track placed in the HOT 100 all at once.
About a year ago, country star Morrgan Wallen released a 36-track album and every single cut made the HOT 100 that week. It was bandied about that Morgan smashed The Beatles record of having a bunch of songs on the charts back in 1964.
Not quite the same thing however. Not even close.
Glass Houses is certainly a Rock and Roll album. A lot of Songs in the Attic is Rock and Roll. I’m not a big fan, but admire his song writing. I also think he sounded pretty damn good for his age.
He’s been fortunate that his fingers and his voice have held up. Other greats (Linda Ronstadt, etc.) haven’t been as lucky.
Liberty DeVitto is a monster on drums.
Early in the Beatles intro to US charts, they had top 5 spots - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 at the same time.
I can’t say — the feed was cut and the station went into ‘station identification’ at 10:00 Pm then the news.
"All right, Vito!"
yeah, I’m just one of those folks that just don’t get the appeal of Billy Joel. He’s kinda like Seinfeld TV show, you either love it or hate it, not a lot of in between.
Keep it to yourself; this is my life.
Golf game? Oh!...You mean the video montage of the Tiger Woods Elevation to godhood & Arse Kissing Celebration?
It was boring, they could have switched it back to espn+, Scottie had a 3 stroke lad going into 18...BORING. Besides, the only thing this year's Masters will be remembered for (other that Scottie's 2nd jacket) will be the obvious blackballing of all the LIV golfers
Somebody should tell CBS there is such a thing as ‘The Golf Channel’ and anybody who is interested in golf will watch it.
I have no interest in golf and nothing is more boring that seeing someone play it.
It’s like watching someone sleep................
I recall that line from a Joe Cocker song. Lol
The switchover was obviously computer-controlled and they forgot to account for their special report.
-PJ
Great post. That’s exactly what I told my wife. We watched both. The Master’s is an iconic sporting event, it gets its full time. The Billy Joel concert was a great special it should have got its full time. Two simple solutions; cut out a couple minutes of commercials over the time between the end of The Master’s and end of the concert, or just push back the local news by 5-10 minutes. I doubt anyone would have noticed either.
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