Welcoming the New Year From the Sofa

Television networks preparing elaborate plans for New Year’s Eve programming have gotten good news recently, as Americans increasingly tell pollsters they plan to stay in on the holiday.

A Time/CNN survey found less than one in five respondents intend to celebrate more festively than in the past. In similar fashion, David Herbert, president of Glendale-based tour operator African Travel, recently told Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds that high-priced trip packages tied to the milestone appear to be “the bust of the century.”

Presumably, that means millions of people will spend New Year’s Eve at least in the vicinity of a television set, available to watch the various TV extravaganzas designed for those who prefer to greet 2000 in the hoped-for safety of their homes.

New York’s Times Square will be media central for many of the coverage-fests. In all, 19 cameras, provided by the Times Square Business Improvement District, will feed any TV outlet that wants its 24 hours of free video footage of the millions of revelers and the famous ball-drop, as well as a show that will include 400 dancers, actors and musicians, giant puppets, light shows and pyrotechnics.

In addition, about 40 news organizations from around the world are expected to set up cameras on a six-story platform--double last year’s three stories--to capture the festivities.

Even networks that aren’t planning live New Year’s Eve coverage plan to capitalize on the hype with themed programs. Anyone for the last episode of the short-lived 1982 “Blockbusters” on the Game Show Network’s marathon of final episodes of classic game shows?

Here’s a breakdown of some of the main players.

Networks

ABC: The network is spending several million dollars to send its correspondents around the world for a 24-hour broadcast, beginning at just before 2 a.m. Pacific time on Dec. 31 and anchored by Peter Jennings, who will be in the new “Good Morning America” studio overlooking Times Square. Barbara Walters drew the Paris assignment and Diane Sawyer will head to New Zealand; altogether ABC expects to have people in some 40 places, and will be able to have reports from thousands more, thanks to its participation in a consortium of worldwide broadcasters, says Tom Yellin, one of the executive producers. The show will be largely news-driven, focused less on history and more on where “smart people think we’re headed in the future,” Yellin says. There will be entertainment, too: Dick Clark, who has traditionally held forth on ABC for the Times Square ball drop will have a role and there will be performances, many live, by everyone from Ray Charles to ‘N Sync to Billy Joel.

CBS: Its plans are still being firmed up. There’s talk of a special from late-night host David Letterman at 8 p.m. and perhaps a music program at 9 p.m. From 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., CBS will air (live in the East; tape-delayed in Los Angeles) the official music and entertainment gala, “America’s Millennium,” being put together in Washington, D.C. Hosted by Will Smith, it will feature appearances by Trisha Yearwood, Muhammad Ali and Jessye Norman, among others, as well as the premiere of Steven Spielberg’s 18-minute “The Unfinished Journey,” with highlights of the 20th century. CBS will break for a half-hour of local news at 11 p.m. Meanwhile, CBS News will have correspondents around the world for reports in various news broadcasts.

NBC: Recently under fire for airing the speculative thriller “Y2K,” the network will mark the millennium’s arrival with extensive news coverage, with hourly cut-ins from around the globe starting at 5 a.m. on Dec. 31 and an extended “Today” show. Prime-time coverage focusing on safety concerns as well as celebratory aspects of the event will be anchored by Tom Brokaw. “The Tonight Show” host Jay Leno will deliver a 15-minute monologue after late local newscasts before returning to Brokaw and Katie Couric in New York’s Time Square. NBC’s coverage will be coordinated with news channel MSNBC, which will offer round-the-clock reports.

Fox: The network will mix entertainment and news in a New Year’s Eve special, “Fox 2000,” from 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Fox News’ Brit Hume and Paula Zahn will host the special from Times Square, with live musical performances and correspondents around the country and the world reporting on breaking news and “signs of possible Y2K trouble.”

PBS: In an ambitious 25-hour public TV venture, “PBS Millennium 2000” will be staged in partnership with the BBC and more than 50 other countries. The varied entertainment lineup includes ballet from Australia, love songs from the Taj Mahal, and such performers as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and the Gypsy Kings, as well as Elton John and Tina Turner from Las Vegas.

Pax TV: The fledging family network will be home to “Millennium Live . . . Humanity’s Broadcast,” a planned 24-hour live event that will begin at 3 a.m. Pacific time and traverse 24 time zones, starting in Fiji and concluding in Hawaii. Organizers of the telecast--who include Hal Uplinger, a producer of the Live Aid benefit in 1985--claim it will link 156 countries via a combination of TV, radio and the Internet. Among acts the producers say they have booked are Aerosmith, Blondie, KISS, Lou Bega, Phil Collins, Sting, Ricky Martin and the Spice Girls.

Cable

CNN: The all-news network is planning a full 100 hours of around-the-world reports, beginning at 2 a.m. Pacific time on Dec. 31 and running through Jan. 4. There will be live reports from nearly 60 CNN correspondents worldwide, as well as coverage of any Y2K-related problems, a look ahead at the 21st century and a multipart examination, with more than 50 reports, of social and cultural developments of the last 1,000 years. Larry King will host his nightly show from Los Angeles.

MTV: The network counts down to the millennium with a six-hour bash titled “MTV 2 Large,” starting at 7 p.m. and showcasing a musical roster with Puff Daddy, Bush, Christina Aguilera and Goo Goo Dolls. HBO: Catering to a different taste on each of its three channels, HBO will air the music show “Reverb” on its main channel; comedy specials starring Jerry Seinfeld, George Carlin, Dennis Miller and D.L. Hughley on HBO Plus; and classic movies such as “It Happened One Night,” “Casablanca” and “A Streetcar Named Desire” on HBO Signature. Among movie channels, American Movie Classics has scheduled a lineup of screwball comedies under the heading “Millennium Mayhem,” while Turner Classic Movies will offer “New Year’s Eve With the King,” running 15 consecutive hours of Elvis Presley films.

As for kids, at the stroke of midnight Nickelodeon will premiere a 24-hour commercial-free documentary, “Nickellennium,” featuring interviews with thousands of children discussing their hopes and predictions about the future. In an interactive vein, the Disney Channel is allowing kids to choose their own New Year’s lineup, voting on the concert, movie, series episode and music video they wish to see by logging on to https://www.ZoogDisney.com from Dec. 3 to 16.

Viewer’s Choice will also provide those determined to party like it’s 1999 with a pay-per-view concert featuring the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, for, appropriately, $19.99.

Elizabeth Jensen reported from New York; Brian Lowry reported from Los Angeles.