What's happened to the Macy's Parade coverage?

[installLSC]

While watching this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on NBC, I was frustrated by how little air time was given to floats and marching bands these days. You seemed to get 30 seconds of the actual parade before cutting to some obscure teen aimed musical act. Varsity Fanclub? Some 16 year old Filapina karaokeing to Celine Dion? Are teenage girls booking the parade? Hell even the football games had halftimes of Jesse McCartney and the Jonas Brothers! I tried CBS' coverage of the same parade (why do two networks do the exact same parade?), but they were too busy cutting to musical performances that were clearly done weeks before or a 10 minute interview of Clay Aiken.

[BobLibDem]

Precisely why I never watch the parade. If they actually showed the parade, I might watch. The only parade worth watching is the Rose parade, and that is only tolerable if you watch it on HGTV.

[RealityChuck]

Huh? It seemed like every float and balloon got roughly equivalent airtime (at least, on NBC, which has the best coverage). The marching bands got slightly less, but where highlighted and allowed to play and perform in front of Macy's.

All the "teen acts" were on the floats (not counting the first hour, which was primarily Broadway shows before the parade reached Herald Square). But overall, it was no different from Macy's parade coverage in the past couple of decades.

Besides, it was worth it this year for the Rickroll alone. Not to mention when the balloon nearly took out the commentators.

[mobo85]

Yeah, there's nothing different with the parade- your problem is with the performers on the floats, not NBC. As for CBS, they're not allowed to show the musical acts or use the word Macy's, so I imagine their coverage would be even worse.

[Ro Carter]

This is why my dad spends Thanksgiving morning in the basement watching the History Channel. He absolutely cannot stand watching the parade for exactly the reasons stated above, and the rest of the family insists on at least having it on the TV, if not actually watching it.