The terrorist attacks had a widespread effect, including the halting of almost all Hollywood production.
All of the major TV and film studios and networks told employees to stay home and a number of major events including The Latin Grammys and The Emmy Awards were postponed. With the fall TV season set to begin next week, nearly every primetime show on network television was scheduled to be in production Tuesday in and around Los Angeles. With three of the four downed airplanes headed to Los Angeles, many studio and network executives spent the day accounting for their employees.
Network executives were huddling Tuesday afternoon, deciding whether to delay the start of the 2001-2002 season. "It's too early to tell right now, we'll see as the week progresses," said an ABC spokesman. But one network executive said, "It looks like we might actually hold off a week, do you think the American public is going to be ready for a bunch of new sitcoms and dramas?"
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences quickly postponed The 53rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards and The 2nd Annual Latin Grammy Awards.
The Emmys were scheduled to take place at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium on Sunday and the Latin Grammys Tuesday at Los Angeles' Great Western Forum. Both events were to air on CBS. "This is one of those national moments when television is at it's finest hour and we at the Academy want to allow our news colleagues to bring us and allow us to share this national tragedy, The Emmy Awards will go on, but at an appropriate time," said TV Academy President Jim Chabin.
Sources say The Emmys may be delayed a week to the following Sunday and that show's comedy bits will likely be taken out. It is unclear when The Latin Grammy's will be rescheduled.
At NBC, employees were told not to come in and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno shut down operations and did not produce a broadcast for Tuesday night. NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker was in a meeting at The Empire State Building at the time, but NBC executives say he is fine.
At Fox, the Fox Plaza Tower high-rise, the building used in the first Die Hard movie, was evacuated and all Fox employees were sent home. Fox's national feed Tuesday night will carry live news coverage from Fox News. Fox Broadcasting executives made a couple scheduling changes in the wake of the disaster. Fox has pulled The X-Files Movie off the schedule on Friday and also the film Independence Day from Sunday's lineup. Also the debut of reality series Love Cruise: The Maiden Voyage was postponed Tuesday and rescheduled for next Tuesday (Sept. 18) at 9 p.m.
At ABC's Los Angeles headquarters, employees were told to stay at home and schedulers made one programming change, pulling film The Peacemaker off the air Saturday night.
UPN executives said they will be taking the CBS national feed from 5 p.m. PT through 11 p.m. PT and that further programming decisions will be made Wednesday.
Sources say UPN may pull film Max Knight Ultra Spy on Friday. At The WB, Tuesday's primetime feed has been suspended and CNN will be carried on all of the Tribune affiliates. The WB has also pulled movie The Craft from Wednesday night's lineup. - Joe Schlosser
