After all, it is the Cradle of Liberty

Apparently, the competition is a bit more cutthroat over the ratings for Fourth of July events on television than I thought. I know this now because I had to do some research to discover why, exactly, my Pops weren't on TV tonight.
I'm sad to say that NBC was the killing stroke for my favorite event on the Fourth: the Boston Pops concert from the clam shell. Because NBC plays an encore presentation of its Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular from New York, and because CBS's coverage of the Pops lost 1 million viewers to that encore last year, CBS decided to not re-sign its contract with the Pops to broadcast their event nationally. And because of that, Brian and I were unable to watch our beloved Pops concert and fireworks show for the first time in 11 years.
This was very distressing to us, and it made me sad. We ended up watching A Capitol Fourth on PBS. It was incredibly entertaining, with its plethora of Barry Manilow, and dabblings of Neil Diamond, Motown and American Idol competitors. However, I can't listen to anyone else play the 1812 Overture; they just don't do it well enough.
And certainly, we probably could have found it online, but if it's awesome in person, and tolerable on television, it must be quite disappointing on a computer screen. Here's hoping the crazy suits at CBS realize their dorks for putting me through this, and decide to broadcast the concert next year.