Free Times Square New Year's Feed Available

Old acquaintances may be forgot, but media outlets with bigger plans than budgets should not forget that there is a free feed — hosts included — of the New Year’s Eve festivities in New York’s Times Square.

The Times Square Alliance is again teaming with Countdown Entertainment to provide a “clean” uninterrupted, HD satellite/fiber feed for domestic and international television outlets, broadcasters, cable networks and websites.

The feed will be hosted by Allison Hagendorf, and three correspondents will cover the action, from the ball-raising ceremony to stage performances to the dropping of the ball at midnight.

Why is it free? “This is a public-private partnership … No one pays a ticket to come into Times Square and we want to make it available to the broadcasters covering the event for free, too,” Countdown Entertainment president Jeff Straus told The Wire. That extends to cable operators and webmasters as well.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.