Does anyone here know what the Heidi Game of 1968 refers to? It involved the sudden interruption of the NBC coverage of the last portion of a big live NFL game (Raiders vs Jets) with a surprise ending by the TV movie, Heidi. The dummies at NBC never went back to the game. The outrage was widespread among football fans.
Last night on CBS, there was a Billy Joel concert from MSG that had been advertised heavily for weeks. Partially because the Masters ran over earlier in the evening, in the middle of his signature song (Piano Man) CBS coverage suddenly ended and all stations went to local news/local programming and they never rejoined the concert!! The number of complaints was extremely high. I wonder why lmao. Many consider this Heidi Game II.
HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA I NEVER HEARD OF EITHER OF THOSE.
I CAN ONLY IMAGINE WHAT THE LOYAL FANS WERE SCREAMIN'!! LOLOLOL
THANKS FOR THE LITERAL LOL
Thanks much, Larry!
more on that fascinating story about the Heidi game shortly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game
The Heidi Game or Heidi Bowl was a 1968 American Football League (AFL) game between the Oakland Raiders and the visiting New York Jets. The contest, held on November 17, 1968, was notable for its exciting finish, in which Oakland scored two touchdowns in the final minute to win the game 43–32. However, NBC, the game's television broadcaster, decided to break away from its coverage on the East Coast to broadcast the television filmHeidi, which caused many viewers to miss the Raiders' comeback.
++++++++
On a related, personal note as chief meteorologist at one of the local stations for 11 years.
Cutting into programming with severe thunderstorm or tornado warnings that only impact a small number of viewers! Ouch!
If it's a county or 2 with a low population that represents, let's say less than 5% of your viewers, you have to appreciate that 95% of the people watching want to see the show they tuned in for NOT YOU telling them about something that isn't going to impact them.
Today, with the Doppler radars and better graphics/information, its not quite as bad because the amount of information is greater than before.
As a meteorologist, you're mentality is focused on getting this information out ASAP to save lives and help people and with as much detail as possible.
You can tell from my posting here, that I had a huge tendency to be OVERLY wordy on the air(and got in trouble for it numerous times, going over the time allotted for my weather segments).
I can just imagine how many people were ticked off at me for cutting into a key part of the program they were watching.
However, I do recall being cognizant of this and adjusting, based on how many people were being warned and what the program was.
A few times, just running a crawl at the bottom of the screen for a location in the boonies with a warning that I decided was not high end during a popular show.