# What happen to the 2017 Times Square ball drop at midnight? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2017, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031 "2017-01-01T05:28:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/1 "2017-01-01T05:28:30Z")
Wasn’t shown on live TV here in southern CA at 9pm (midnight NY time). Did networks have to pay to show it and they refused? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/2 "2017-01-01T05:51:12Z")
I don’t remember ever seeing it live when I lived out west, although that was 20 years ago. It was always taped and shown so the ball dropped at midnight local time. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/3 "2017-01-01T05:53:53Z")
CNN carried it live. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/4 "2017-01-01T07:08:44Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I don’t remember ever seeing it live when I lived out west, although that was 20 years ago. It was always taped and shown so the ball dropped at midnight local time. Same here. I used to see it live when I lived the east, but now I live in the Mountain time zone. They show it at midnight local time. Who wants to watch it drop at 10 PM? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/5 "2017-01-01T14:37:21Z")
Maybe some of the networks dropped the ball on this. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/6 "2017-01-01T17:24:15Z")
The networks don’t air it out west until midnight Pacific time - and even at that, not all of them do it. I think just NBC and ABC did this year; Fox had something from Miami, and if CBS aired anything, its San Francisco station didn’t show it. CNN has aired the ball drop live since 2000 (which was also the only time a network aired it live in the west; ABC had all-day coverage of live worldwide celebrations). There may be other live ball drops on cable, but CNN is the only one I am sure of. Before 2000, it was about 50/50 as to whether or not CNN would air the drop live, and even when it did, it was just the last 30 seconds or so. Back in the 1970s, it was usually New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on ABC, Guy Lombardo’s show on CBS (both of which had the ball drop), and a Tonight Show episode on NBC (one year, back when Times Square replaced the ball with a giant apple, Johnny Carson “celebrated” midnight by dropping an apple in front of his desk at midnight). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/7 "2017-01-01T17:37:26Z")
They got leap second confused with leap hour and did it at 1 am when you’d already passed out from excess \. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/8 "2017-01-01T21:19:09Z")
I distinctly remembered _Dick Clark’s New Years Rocking Eve_ was a national party for young people who weren’t going to watch PBS show Guy Lombardo (that’s what my parents thought was required for New Year’s.) At any rate, they cut away from the ball – in those days, an actual metal sphere, lowered by hand down a flagpole – after it was dropped (only 2 or 3 seconds off from exactly midnight, there were pretty good) to show us Erin Moran and Donny Osmond ( stars of popular ABC shows in that era) who told us they had some hours to go before they experienced New Years. Doesn’t that happen these days? Can’t Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper generate the same buzz with Ryan Seacrest at the helm? _Sounds of crickets chirping_ Bueler? Anyone? Maybe our culture has advanced without us noticing? ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/9 "2017-01-02T04:12:31Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Maybe some of the networks dropped the ball on this. CNN most certainly did at midnight Pacific time. They re-aired the NYC countdown and ball drop on the west coast **six minutes early**. Perhaps Don Lemon’s drunk incident while broadcasting from New Orleans scared the Atlanta CNN producers. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/10 "2017-01-02T04:13:44Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > Can’t Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper generate the same buzz with Ryan Seacrest at the helm? Ryan needed Mariah Carey’s help this year for that. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2017, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happen-to-the-2017-times-square-ball-drop-at-midnight/776031/11 "2017-01-02T11:55:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > They got leap second confused with leap hour and did it at 1 am when you’d already passed out from excess \. 😃 They must’ve gotten really confused, since the leap second was 6:59:60 EST, or five hours before midnight.