Billy Joel Concert On CBS

[LennG]

Did anyone happen to watch, or try and watch the Billy Joel 100th concert taped live from MSG shown on CBS last night? If you did you probably have a lot to say. If anyone here remembers what happened to NBC when they cut off the Jets/Raiders game years ago to show the movie, Heide, well then CBS for a similar event.

First of all, the much-advertised concert ( they have been advertising this for months) started over 1/2 hour late because of the coverage of the Masters. Why would they schedule this much-hyped concert when they had to know that the Masters, like any football game, might run late? They could have scheduled the concert for next week when there was no sporting event.

Myself, I copied the concert because I knew there would be loads of commercials and they basically have a commercial after every song.

So now the concert is nearing the end and Billy is singing his final song, Piano Man, with thousands of people singing along with him. Just as he is hitting his stride with the song, POOF, the local news comes on without as much as an explanation. I couldn't believe this. They couldn't even have let the concert end, but no, off with Billy Joel and into the 11:00 news which was now 11:30. How in hell could they do this? Simply unbelievable.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smallbusiness/cbs-cut-off-billy-joel-s-concert-in-the-middle-of-piano-man-what-happened-next-was-even-worse/ar-BB1lELO4

Leave it to network TV to score w up a much-hyped show, start it 1/2 hour late, and don't let it finish.

BOOOOOOOOO to CBS.

[ozzie]

Simply horrible execution by CBS. They made an absolute disaster out of something that should have been celebrated, especially after they hyped it for the past month or so!
And of course the only response I heard from CBS so far is that the concert is available on Paramount+.
Sorry, I'm not subscribing to your streaming service. After you just butchered the show you expect me to fork over some money to you. Not happening.
I also find it strange that if they knew they were going to cut to the news no matter what, why did they bother to show that episode of "Tracker" before the concert? That's a network series that they could reschedule without much problem.

[LennG]

From what I hear CBS has apologized (big deal) and is reshowing it on Friday.

[ozzie]

Yes, I saw that. Too bad it took the wrath of so many irate viewers for CBS to decide to do the right thing.

[MightyGiants]

CBS said to make it up to the fans, they are going to rebroadcast it on Friday.   I call BS, CBS got free publicity for a no-cost rerun which will be pure profit for them.

[LennG]

They should do it without the commercials.

I do have Paramount+ and we watched the end of that. Gosh, it was only about another 3-4 minutes.

They really must have butchered this concert up also. Running time is about 90 minutes and 30 minutes of commercials. I have been to one of Billy Joel's concerts and believe me, he sings for a good solid 2 hours, all the time. They eliminated so many of his hit songs just to fit into this time slot and they still screwed it up.