Notes from Sweden

We celebrated New Year’s Eve in the United States for the first time in many years (last year we were in Aswan). But something was a bit lacking as we tried to follow the arrival of midnight around the world.

All the TV channels were completely locked into Time’s Square in New York, with the exception of Fox, which spent the evening in Las Vegas. We happily watched this at 21:00 our time. But as midnight moved west, every hour we got to see Bill and Hillary Clinton dancing together again.

I had assumed that when midnight on the West Coast arrived, the local stations would cut away to show us New Year’s Eve in San Francisco or Oakland. That was not to be. Even Fox cut away from Las Vegas to cover Time’s Square once again.

I am fairly sure that the last time I celebrated the new year in California, the stations, at least the independent Fox affiliate KTVU, showed midnight. I can only conclude that it was a lot cheaper for them to carry someone else’s feed, rather than actually devote their own personnel to the event.

On KCBS radio this morning they reported many fireworks in San Francisco, so there was definately something to cover.