Billy Joel is all over the charts today following the botched broadcast of his special last night.
CBS pulled the plug on the special, which was Emmy worthy, in the last ten minutes and cut to local news. Billy was in the middle of singing “Piano Man.” The whole MSG audience was singing along, and no doubt fans at home were, too.
Fans were outraged. A CBS insider told me: “In the old days, heads would roll over this considering how much effort went into the special.”
The ironic part is that the producers moved “Piano Man” to the end of the show. In concert, the classic song closed the show before encores. If they’d left it alone, CBS would have cut during “You May Be Right.”
Meantime, Billy sees six singles and six albums hit the iTunes charts today, with “Piano Man” at 43. The albums are all his greatest hits packages, and “The Stranger.” On amazon.com, same thing. So that’s some small consolation!
CBS had better re-air that special very quickly– and on the network, not Paramount Plus!
Turn the lights back on!
