Watching the New Year's Eve Ball Drop
The Times Square ball drop is broadcast on ABC. That's the main network covering it live every December 31st. It airs from around 7 PM Eastern Time through midnight and into early morning. The program usually runs three hours or so, depending on how the events unfold. If you're just looking for the channel, it's ABC. You can get it through any cable or satellite provider, or stream it via the ABC app if your provider credentials let you in. Hulu Live, YouTube TV, and Sling Blue all carry it too. If you don't have any of those, the stream is also available for free on the ABC website with a login from a participating TV provider. I used to just leave the TV on ABC and call it a night. Then a few years back my provider switched their stream encoding and the feed cut out right at 11:55 PM during the countdown. Took me about ten seconds to pull up YouTube and find the NBC broadcast of the same event — turns out their feed stayed up. That's worth knowing. NBC sometimes carries it as well, though ABC is the primary rights holder.
One thing people miss: the ABC broadcast isn't the only feed. If your local ABC affiliate is running a different program at midnight — rare but it happens in some markets — the stream might switch to a national feed. Check your local listings beforehand. The affiliate schedules can vary by zip code. Also, if you're watching through a smart TV or streaming box, make sure your app is updated before December 31st. I had a friend who tried to open the ABC app on his Roku and it crashed because the app hadn't been patched since summer. He missed the drop by twelve minutes while he was rebooting and updating. Simple enough fix if you remember to do it a day or two ahead. Audio can be an issue with the live broadcast too. Sometimes the music and crowd noise get mixed really loud, then the actual countdown narration drops to barely audible levels. It's a common broadcast production problem, not something specific to this event. Turn on your TV's speech enhancement or night mode if you have it. Otherwise you'll be yelling at your speaker like everyone else.
For the best picture quality, watch it on a TV that supports HDR if the stream offers it. ABC sometimes pushes HDR for this broadcast depending on your device. I ran into a situation once where my old 4K TV wasn't recognizing the HDR signal and the picture looked washed out compared to everyone else's. Checked the specs, confirmed my TV supported HDR10, and turned on the correct input mode. Problem solved. Doesn't happen every year but it's worth checking if things look off. There's no official way to watch it without some kind of TV subscription or stream, except for being there in person. The Internet can get chaotic around midnight as everyone tries to reload pages at once. I've seen the ABC app throttle bandwidth during peak seconds. Having a backup plan — another device, a phone with a different carrier, a cable box — keeps you from getting cut off right when it matters.
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