Replies

Translation: "News directors of ALL of the networks have been itching to scale back, or better yet to dispense entirely with the ceremony for years, because it's a ratings loser among their core viewer demographic at that time of day, which is uneducated, unpatriotic, unemployed Liberals.".

It's probably a ratings loser for most demographics, to be honest. It would be inappropriate to skip the main part of the ceremony, but giving over hours of presumably commercial-free air time to the reading of the names on every channel is a lot to ask. Would you also insist that every AM and FM radio station pre-empt its programming to carry the ceremony?

the other stations will soon follow suit.

Eventually, I'm sure they will. Eventually, the city itself will scale back the anniversary observance except for big-number years. I'm sorry to sound callous, but life goes on. Some folks will feel this is too soon, but when will it be time? In ten years? Twenty? How long after all but a handful of people have stopped watching?

This is merely the first domino in the line to fall. Quickly, other stations will follow, and in a short time the only place that you will be able to see the entire ceremony will be on YouTube, uploaded by a private citizen with a camcorder.

I doubt it. You mention the Pearl Harbor commemoration -- that is carried in full on C-SPAN each year. Was it carried live on radio for hours in 1947, including reading the names of every victim?

The trend is for ever-greater proliferation of media on satellite, on cable and online, so that events with a small audience is available to those who want it. And in a year and a half, when the transition to digital TV is completed, every over-the-air channel will have multiple feeds at its disposal -- a capability WABC will use to carry the full ceremony on 9/11.

I agree that events like the 9/11 memorial should be available to the public, but I can't find any outrage that it won't be everywhere.

It is not my intent to accuse you or anyone else of being unpatriotic, I only wish to suggest that we are only talking about a few minutes here,

We're not talking about a few minutes. We're talking about the reading of some 2,800 names. My recollection of years past is that it took a couple of hours.

Can't we spare just a few minutes of airtime here for a solemn remembrance of the essential struggle of Humanity in the 21st Century?

Of course -- and as outlined in the article, WABC will carry the ceremony except the reading of the names.

I mean no unkindness, unfriendliness or disrespect;: I only wish to suggest that after only six years of mourning, we still have victims' families who are grieving over the loss of their husbands, wives, daughters, sons and children...and to these people, hearing the names of their loved ones on TV is very meaningful (see numerous quotes in the article)...are they not worth the rejection of Nielsen ratings for just a little while longer?

I'm all for sensitivity to the victims' friends and family, all of whom will have access to the full ceremony. i do not think it's reasonable to ask, as some vocal members of the victims' family groups seem to, that we bring everything else to a halt for everyone else.