I was planning to catch the Pennsylvania Clinton-Obama debate at 5 pm before going to an 8 pm screening. Until I realized, that is, that the jerks running ABC are delaying the broadcast until 8 pm Pacific, and not allowing any replays until tomorrow morning. “We have an obligation to our West Coast affiliates,” an ABC spokesperson said, “to not make chunks of the debate available until their viewers have had a chance to see them.” Asshole!
The ABC exec who made this decision, whom I’ll wager is in his mid to late 50s (if not older), needs to be reminded that this is not 1997. The news-and-information cycle waits for no one. Everything is immediate and now and no older than five or ten minutes ago. It obviously doesn’t get it at all to have to wait to see something these days because of something as meaningless as a time zone. Am I understanding correctly that there won’t even be a late-night re-airing on ABC?