9/11 coverage was so ubiquitous that our local PBS station bought coverage from another station that morning so they could have news of the events. PBS stations never do breaking news. It’s just not done. So to have that shown on our little PBS station instead of the morning kids show. It was so surreal and even more jarring to me. Seeing the world’s evil instead of a cute fluffy monster. 
I remember when President Kennedy died and all the coverage. And back then, you didn’t have cable channels to turn to if you were tired of the coverage, although I think we were all so shocked (at least in my family) that we would not have turned anything else on even if we could have.
Yeah, it’s that same feeling you get when the phone rings at 3:00AM.
“Shit, this can’t be good!”
I’ll add a couple to that. The assassinations of both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and the low-speed chase of O. J. Simpson and Al Cowlings. Wasn’t there also pre-emptive coverage of the riots following the acquittals of the police officers in the Rodney King case? And also the riots at the Democratic National Convention in 1968?
I remember when Pope John Paul II was dying the was alot of talk about how major media outlets had purchased apartments in Rome just to make sure they’d be able to set up a temporary studio that with a view of the Vatican.
This is slightly off-topic, but this makes me recall the incident from George Bush Senior’s term in the oval office. While in Japan, he upchucked on the Premiere, but somehow CNN got the report wrong and thought he’d dropped dead. They were literally seconds away from reporting it on air, before someone rushed into the set.
Announcer: We have a breaking story. We have news in from Japan that President Bush is–
Offscreen voice: NO!!! STOP!!!
Cut to commercial.
And more on topic, I remember a few more events that “interrupted your regularly scheduled programming”…
the Oklahoma City bombing
Rioting in L.A. after the Rodney King verdict
the Tsunami in the Phillipines
the earthquake in S.F. in '89
And (presumably, I wasn’t around for it), the Cuban missile crisis standoff as well.
Also the Iran-Conta hearings (I especially remember North’s testimony)
Columbine.
Watergate.
The guilty verdict in the OJ Simpson trial happened during then President Clinton’s state of the union address. The networks stayed with Clinton and ran a guilty blurb on the bottom.
When Lockerie happened at 4:00, CBS pre-emptied Geraldo and NBC pre-emptied Donahue for it. But ABC stayed with Oprah, the Donald and then-wife Ivana.
Columbine, by the way, is the first breaking news story that I remember getting via the Internet as opposed to traditional media. I was at my work-study job in college and just kept hitting refresh on CNN.com to get updates.
I seem to remember when I was a kid that they preempted a lot of daytime television for coverage of the Iran-Contra trials.
I’m relying only on memory, but I’m pretty sure several non-news cable channels carried simulcasts of whatever news channel was co-owned by the same corporation.
I also seem to recall some stations putting up title cards with statements like “Due to today’s events, we have temporarily suspended our programming schedule.” In other words, “You know, it just doesn’t feel right to be showing Spongebob Squarepants right now. Sorry.”
Are you sure about that? Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, the day the last episode of Seinfeld aired (I remember the date because Seinfeld was my favorite show at the time), and I don’t recall NBC airing ER that night. The whole night was pretty much a big celebration of Seinfeld. I could be wrong of course and if I am please feel free to correct me.
I do know for sure, though, that there’s no way NBC would have interrupted the final episode of Seinfeld to break the news. Believe me, I would have remembered that.
OJ was found Not Guilty in that trial.
I do specifically remember Sinatra’s death was announced in the morning on the West Coast. If JoeBuck’s date is correct, then ER certainly wouldn’t have been interrupted for his death announcement.
I specifically remember that Food Network went off the air, using the title card.
Huh? The verdict in the OJ trial happened in the early afternoon. I remember because I was in school at the time and someone came into out classroom to tell us.
It was also in October and therefore not likely to coincide with the State of the Union speech.
I think Annie may be referring to the civil trial, in which O.J. was found liable for the wrongful deaths of Nicole and Ron on February 5, 1997. But I haven’t bothered to look up the date of the SotU that year, and “guilty verdict” is not an accurate descriptor, legally speaking.
Right. It was the civil trial.
You got lucky. In Los Angeles, the NBC affiliate switched coverage to put the game in the lower corner and the chase on the full screen. Eventually they had the chase on both the full screen and the insert window. I’ve always wondered what KNBC would have done had the Lakers been in the finals that year.
I remember the Challenger explosion took over the Big 3 + all local stations.
I remember one of the Pink Panther movies being interrupted to tell us Nelson Rockerfeller had died.
I remember KMET-FM breaking in mid-song to announce John Lennon had been shot, and breaking in half an hour later to announce he was dead.
The Reagan shooting was on all channels once I got home from school.
Last night 60 Minutes was interrupted with the Emergency Alert System signal to tell all of southern California that it was raining. The video kept showing 60 minutes, but the audio switched over to the storm warning.
One event I remember and almost no one else seems to is a hostage situation at the Washington Monument in December 1982.
What I remember is that the coverage seemed to consist mostly of a zoomed in shot of the tip of the monument and its flashing red beacon light. The Wiki article suggests the situation was actually at the base of the monument, perhaps the tourists were trapped at the top, I always presumed the event happened at the top.