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Good news for parents: Fireworks to start, end an hour earlier this year
By adamg on Sun, 06/16/2013 - 8:51am
The Globe reports the good news.
Oh, yeah, the Globe also reports this is all because of evil New Yorkers trying to squash our poor little fireworks display, but, hey, even evil New Yorkers aren't all bad.
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Comments
Good riddance, CBS
Please go away and don't ever come back to the Esplanade.
(Would the little low-key A&E Network be interested in returning? People seemed to like that broadcast.)
You don't have cable, do you?
The only way I'd support giving it to A&E would be if the broadcast was co-hosted by Barry Weiss from Storage Wars and Si from Duck Dynasty.
This is not the low-key A&E of 20 years ago.
"How can we work in a character arc and some forced conflict?"
Oh, and don't forget the hyperbolic, over-dramatic narrator.
I miss the '90s.
A&E
If internet rumors are to be trusted, then I doubt A&E would be eager to get the Pops back.
Aside from what others have pointed out, that A&E is no longer about the Arts and all about trash TV, it seems that David Mugar wanted A&E's parent company to broadcast the whole concert on ABC to gain true national exposure; when ABC/A&E passed, Mugar settled for the CBS/WBZ one hour of national coverage deal. I imagine A&E/ABC won't forget that, but that's my speculation.
Another alternative - before
Another alternative - before A&E started broadcasting the full concert with Mary Richardson and what-his-name, it was shown regularly, and I believe nationwide, on PBS. No surprise given that Evening At Pops was still being offered back then. Perhaps Mugar can strike a deal with them through WGBH if he still wants national exposure without the dictats of commercial TV.
Washington DC Celebration
I believe PBS now shows the Washington DC celebration on July 4.
Which was cancelled this
Which was cancelled this year, yes?
Good
It was getting ridiculous how late they were trending. It didn't matter so much for me, as my kids got older as they got later and I can climb on my roof to watch ... but, still ...
Kind of like there was an assumption that people who live and work in the city were no longer the main audience - people who had to be up for work in the morning, people with kids in childcare, etc.
The three-hour time shift in the last decade was certainly a strain on the people who had to work the event and clean up by morning, too.
Good to hear they are at least moving it back an hour - but it should be two, honestly. It isn't all about tourists and people with the week off.
Can't move it back two hours
The fireworks are now scheduled for 9:30 (instead of 10:30 during the CBS years). You can't do them at 8:30 -- it's still way too light out.
Scheduled versus Actual
That's a part of the problem. They used to be just after dusk.
Seems like they didn't finish until midnight last year.
Fireworks ended at 11 last year
which is still way too late. Earlier in the evening, a lightning storm made a mess out of the live concert (and the TV broadcast).
Best news ever
So glad to hear CBS is no longer a part of the broadcast. Still a bit grumpy that Senator Browns fame chasing daughter is one of the featured singers, I thought her career as a sing would come to an end once her father was voted out of office.
I'm a Democrat...
...and I don't care who Ayla Brown's father is.
She may not have the voice of Whitney Houston or Adele, but she's not nearly as bad as Senator Brown's opponents make her out to be.
That earnes her a spot?
Ayla brown, not as bad as they say she is!
Why not?
I mean, there are only so many 'local' acts and only so many times I can listen to Aerosmith sing "Walk this Way".
She was famous before he was
She was famous before he was a senator because of American Idol. Keep drinking the hater-aid though. I'm sure personally wishing ill on every politician's family you disagree with will make you really happy and healthy in life.
That's what I thought
I mean, I'm not into her genre ... but she seemed to be tracking her own career arc long before she sold her father to Karl Rove.
Seems to be a good fit for the format being offered for the evening. Let the woman make her own way on her own merit. If she isn't up to it, she won't be called on again.
She was in the top 16 in 2006
Wow, surprised that billing didn't garner national broadcast coverage.
I'm Glad too!
This concert was a nice Boston event until they wanted to make it bigger, just to feed their egos. It not only added nothing for Bostonian but took things away. I am glad they got their butts kicked. And they blame New York -- No one watches your boring event that is why you were dumped.
This is Wonderful
The pressure is now off to draw TV ratings with pop stars, country stars, and eventual rap stars, though Snoop Dog in a haze of smoke seems apropos. The program might return to more orchestral selections and instrumental soloists with less focus on vocalists.
Did Jack Williams figure into this? I wonder if he claimed ownership like Dick Clark to New Year's Eve?
No doubt.
Who needs Jennifer Hudson when you can watch Ayla Brown awkwardly gyrate to Mustang Sally? Maybe The Flutie Brother's band is available too...
Hey, why not?
At least they're local, as opposed to Dr. Phil or Martina McBride or, as much as it pains me to say it, Craig Ferguson.
I've got no love for Dr. George Bluth Sr.
And I'm not even sure what Martina McBride's big song(s)? are. But there's a wide chasm between a megastar like Hudson and Ayla Brown. You can throw a dart in a classroom at berklee and hit someone more talented than neighborhood roadhouse quality acts like Brown and Doug Flutie. Local is fine. But quality should count for something.
Why are you going to the fireworks?
To see some megastar from such a distant location you can't make out her face or to see bombs bursting in air?
True confession: We don't go downtown on July 4th. We go to Newton, where you can get there 15 minutes before the fireworks start and still find a good place to sit, everybody oohs and ahs and then you can leave without feeling like you're about to be pulverized into a thin paste.
For us, moving the Boston fireworks back an hour actually means we'll miss them - we'd always stop at the Bates School in Roslindale and watch them from there on the way home.
True confession- I don't go to the esplanade.
I watch the broadcast on TV and the fireworks from another place in the city. I just want good entertainment.
I won't miss the broadcast
I won't miss the broadcast being beholden to CBS, and I welcome the earlier time slot, but I find it surprising that they really think reruns of "Person of Interest" will attract more viewers than the fireworks and a portion of the concert.
Will they move the 1812 Overture back towards the end, since it was moved to the middle due to CBS' feeling that it wasn't suitable for the national audience?
Esplanade show jumped the shark in 2006, if not prior
The Esplanade show jumped the shark in 2006, if not prior. 2006 was the year they brought Dr. Phil and wife in to host. A new low. Lionel Ritchie's sudden, last-minute cancellation for "scratchy throat" last year was a close second. One would think that with Deval being in Obama's back pocket and Menino barely functioning, someone in the Governor's office could have made a call to Washington to get some real talent in here, especially this year after the Islamic terrorism here. Farce.
I always thought the idea of
I always thought the idea of showing fireworks on TV was kind of pointless. As for the concert, I hope we can get back to something more in line with the old Fiedler days....more Sousa marches and Aaron Copland and less over-the-top hysteri-pop. And the 1812 placed back at the end of the concert where it belongs, right before the Stars and Stripes Forever.
You took the words right out of my mouth
"I always thought the idea of showing fireworks on TV was kind of pointless. As for the concert, I hope we can get back to something more in line with the old Fiedler days"
You took the words right out of my mouth. Watching fireworks on TV is like watching a colorful test pattern. And I would like to see the program realigned with Fiedler's vision and not the watered-down-yet-overblown-version used in current years to appeal to tourists and the national audience. It seems this always happens with things that were once uniquely Boston. Like First Night. It's gotten way overblown and meaningless. A million people show up just to stand and do nothing in Copley Square. What's the point? You can't even see the fireworks from there. Standing in Copley Square like a bunch of penguins did not even figure into the original vision of First night.
It's just a thing for tourists now.
I agree, Finn.
No matter what anybody says or thinks, absolutely nothing beats going outside and seeing the fireworks live and as what they really look like, even if it be from a rooftop, or even from an overpass near one's residence.
This is a good thing. The
This is a good thing.
The powers-that-be kind'a sold their soul years ago, doing the national deal.
Mugar complains about Macy's/NBC pushing #1 Boston out of the coveted timeslot and "victim of our own success"?
Wah! It's called competition, Mugar. Don't forget, either, that you're the current rep for the production company that took a successful event and moved it out of its timeslot.
Honestly, this may be the salvation of the event.
When I think of the mounting evidence over the years - the 1812 Overture has seemed awkward (did they move its place in the program?), the same tired footage EVERY YEAR of the same 5 women getting up from their front-row blanket to kick-dance Stars and Stripes Forever, the fake footage a couple of years ago (digitally creating impossible views of fireworks over Boston landmarks), and last year's fiasco (we MUST deliver a scripted product to the national audience, which is why we tape the dress rehearsal, because they couldn't possibly understand an interruption due to a lightning storm) - it needs saving.