# ABC interrupted Happy Valentine's Day, Charlie Brown to announce Whitney Houston's death

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 12, 2012, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570 "2012-02-12T01:17:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570/21 "2012-02-13T04:18:25Z")

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Now that most of us have access to all the news, all the time, it doesn’t make sense to interrupt ANY program for anything short of dire emergency. But network executives are not known for seeing the big picture.

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**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570/22 "2012-02-13T04:43:43Z")

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That was not just ordinary stupid … it was TV network executive stupid!

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**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570/23 "2012-02-13T16:57:59Z")

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I wonder how high up the network executive really was?

It was Saturday night for goodness sakes. the Saturday before Valentines Day.

My guess it was a very low level network news producer who made the call. Probably his last call.

Ironically, I do not think NBC did anything and they had _The Voice_ on TV. If there was any prime time TV show that would be interrupted, it would be “The Voice”.

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**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570/24 "2012-02-13T17:19:39Z")

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“Whitney _who_, mommy?”

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**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570/25 "2012-02-13T17:25:20Z")

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You could only tell they were reporting Whitney Houston died from the text on-screen.

The talking head just said “Wah WAH wah wah wah wahhh.”

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**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abc-interrupted-happy-valentines-day-charlie-brown-to-announce-whitney-houstons-death/612570/26 "2012-02-13T18:58:25Z")

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I am going to be writing the network just because this was a massively stupid stupid thing to do.

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