ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — After Billy Joel's concert on CBS abruptly ended last night, 10 Tampa Bay sports director Evan Closky may have said it best on X: "We Turned the Lights Back On too soon."
Fans of the "Piano Man" who tuned in to the network's taped concert special, "Billy Joel: The 100th - Live at Madison Square Garden," were listening to the performer's namesake song when the program suddenly cut to black and then went to local news.
The issue didn't just happen at 10 Tampa Bay, but at CBS-affiliated stations across the Eastern and Central time zones, according to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. WCCO-TV, the CBS-owned and operated station there, suffered the same fate.
Phone calls, Facebook messages, and emails expressing frustration and confusion flooded into stations immediately.
The concert was originally scheduled to start at 9 p.m. Eastern but was pushed to just after 9:30 p.m. because of ongoing coverage of the Masters golf tournament. Simply put, to avoid getting into the technical weeds, 10 Tampa Bay and many other stations did not have control of airing the concert in full.
CBS apologized to viewers in the following statement provided Monday afternoon and announced it would re-air the special Friday:
"A network programming timing error ended last night's Billy Joel special approximately two minutes early in the Eastern and Central Time Zones. We apologize to Mr. Joel, his fans, our affiliated stations, and our audience whose viewing experience was interrupted during the last song.
"Due to the overwhelming demand from his legion of fans, BILLY JOEL: THE 100TH – LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN will be rebroadcast in its entirety on CBS on April 19th at 9:00PM ET/PT."
For fans who'd like to watch Joel's complete concert sooner — or just watch the grand finale of "Piano Man" — CBS posted the program on its website for free at CBS.com.