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outlets are racing to keep up with the breaking Frankenstorm crisis as its core moves inland to Pennsylvania and New York State ' with effects as far as the Midwest. President Obama this morning declared both New York and New Jersey as major disaster areas as the death toll rose to at least 16 U.S. deaths in Sandy's wake. Meanwhile, more than 200 firefighters have been battling a 6-alarm fire in Rockaway, Queens throughout the night which has already destroyed at least 50 homes in the beach community that was featured in Woody Allen's Radio Days and TV series including Rescue Me and Seinfeld. Flooding also continued overnight along the East Coast and notably in Delaware and New Jersey where there have been dam breaks in the northern part of the state and water rising to the top of local street signs in the south at Seaside Heights, home of The Jersey Shore.
It's clear from early assessments that this superstorm will impact all facets of entertainment ' especially TV sweeps schedules and ratings as well as box office receipts ' and cause huge dollar losses.
An estimated 7.5 million people up and down the East Coast and beyond are now without power, according to the Associated Press and it could be a week before power is restored, including in Lower Manhattan (south of 40th Street, the largest power outage in NYC history). All outdoor filming permits for today have been revoked across NYC's five boroughs, but morning talk shows Good Morning America on ABC, Today on NBC and CBS This Morning were expected to air live as usual, the AP said.
Last night, a facade flew off a Chelsea apartment building and a fireman was injured. As day breaks this morning, Manhattan residents are waking to find debris, dangerous downed power lines and flooding with bridges and the subway still closed. The chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority said the storm was the most destructive in the 108-year history of the subway system, The New York Times reports. Joseph J. Lhota released this early morning statement: 'We are assessing the extent of the damage and beginning the process of recovery.' He did not give any indication of when mass transit would come back online.
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A flooded data center in Lower Manhattan took down the media websitesGawker, Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post on Monday as Hurricane 
Sandy made landfall in New York City. Datagram, the ISP whose Manhattan servers host those and other sites, said it lost power and was pumping out 5 feet of water from its basement. ConEd said it was beginning to shut off power in some areas of Manhattan to protect equipment and be able to reboot faster, and TV reports showed flooded streets around Wall Street and throughout Manhattan. 'Gawker is temporarily down because the 57th Street Crane just flooded our servers with sea foam, or something. Back with you shortly,' the site tweeted at 4:04 PM PT. 'Our site is down. Problems with NY-area servers due to Sandy. Be Back. ASAP,' Buzzfeed tweeted. HuffPo also had no connectivity, but came back up in skeleton form Tuesday morning, telling readers the site was having technical difficulties. 'There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. ' Willa Cather,' the site posted on its Twitter page at 4:36 PM PT on Monday. Sandy was downgraded to a tropical storm as it approached land Monday evening but still featured sustained winds of 85 mph.
On the broadcast side, CBS said it was replacing its primetime schedule of new shows Monday during sweeps with comedy repeats and a Hurricane Sandy news special from 10-11 PM ET hosted by Scott Pelley. It marked the first broadcast network to make such changes, with NBC and ABC saying they planned no alterations to their scripted lineups as of Monday afternoon. 'Many stations in the Northeast will be pre-empting or cutting in with breaking news coverage, and even if a station isn't pre-empting the network, it's unclear how many areas will still have power,' one network insider told Deadline. CBS aired repeats of How I Met Your Mother, Partners, 2 Broke Girls and Mike & Molly from 8-10 The CBS News special replaced Hawaii Five-0. Fox intended to play an encore of The X-Factor.
ABC News was to air a one-hour version of World News With Diane Sawyer and expand Nightline to a one-hour show dedicated to storm coverage. Nightline was planning live East Coast and West Coast versions at 11:35 PM, cutting into the Jimmy Kimmel Live repeat scheduled earlier when the late-night show's Brooklyn taping Monday was cancelled. Fox News Channel said it would not air The O'Reilly Factor , opting to extend The Fox Report with Shepard Smith from one to two hours to cover the storm live. Hannity was still scheduled to air in its regular 9 PM ET slot, followed by Greta Van Susteren's On The Record. Both shows will provide storm coverage. O'Reilly is expected to return Tuesday.
What won't be returning Tuesday: the New York Stock Exchange. Trading will be suspended for a second day because of weather for the first time since 1888. 'It's a monumental event, and we take it very seriously,' said Larry Liebowitz, COO of NYSE Euronext, the company that operates the NYSE. 'It's not a hyped-up drama.' Leibowitz spoke shortly at 2 PM ET Monday after conference calls with stock brokerage firms, regulators and officials during which a 'consensus' emerged to close markets for a second day. He was 'optimistic' the markets would reopen Wednesday.
Broadway also will remain closed Tuesday after shutting down performances Sunday afternoon. The Broadway League is offering refunds for tickets on those days and expects shows to reopen on Wednesday.
On the daytime side, Live With Kelly And Michael said it will not be in production Tuesday, airing a rerun instead.
On Monday, Hurricane Sandy sank the tall ship constructed for 1962's Mutiny On The Bounty and used in Disney's Pirates Of The Caribbean, according to reports. One crew member, Claudene Christian, 42, was pulled from the water and later died, the Coast Guard said. Fifteen other crew members were rescued but the Coast Guard is still looking for the captain of the 180-foot vessel, which went down off the coast of North Carolina.
Earlier in the day, the threat of the storm forced the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live's New York City show Monday at the Harvey Theatre at Brooklyn Academy of Music. His late-night counterparts Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman taped their shows without studio audiences. Monday's Kimmel was supposed to the first of a five-night stint in the borough for the Brooklyn-raised host. 'We are hopeful to be back on the air tomorrow night with Howard Stern, Tracy Morgan and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings,' the ABC show said in a statement. It will air its show last week with Michelle Obama instead. Fallon sent its audience home ahead of the taping. Letterman's guests included Denzel Washington, whose film Flight opens Friday.
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Among other shows, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report were cancelled Monday.
Meanwhile, Monday's Washington DC premiere of Seal Team 6: The Raid On Osama Bin Laden, which was postponed until Thursday, was back on. The screening was to be held 6 PM ET at the Hay Adams Hotel. 'The show must go on,' said Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Company is behind the action pic. 'We don't want anybody to be unsafe, but if you're just walking across the street or down the block, why not come?' Weinstein, who is staying at the hotel, said the plan to wait until Thursday is now on hold, because it looks like attendance will be pretty good. The movie is set to air on Nat Geo on November 4, two days before the presidential election.
The American Film Market said Monday that about 15 companies have said they may be delayed making it for the October 31 opening due to the storm. 'It's primarily New York-based companies or those connecting through New York from Europe,' an AFM spokesperson said. Approximately 350 companies are exhibiting this year at the Santa Monica-based confab.
Earlier Monday, the New York Stock Exchange ditched its plan to provide electronic trading on its NYSE ARCA exchange. Following NASDAQ's decision Sunday night to close because of Hurricane Sandy, it means that Monday was the first unplanned day without stock trading since 9/11, the AP reported. It was also the first time weather has closed the markets since Hurricane Gloria in 1985. Several companies have delayed their planned quarterly earnings releases including DreamWorks Animation, Pfizer, Thomson Reuters, and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. DWA's third-quarter announcement and conference call, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was pushed to Thursday.
Also Monday, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal dropped their paywalls to give readers access to coverage.
Moviegoing from Washington DC to Connecticut was slammed Sunday and continuing Monday. Many theaters in the lucrative NYC market ' 2nd biggest in North America after LA ' already were dark until today after sending employees home early. AMC stopped selling tickets after 3 PM Sunday, and Clearview Cinemas and City Cinemas and Angelika Film Center soon after. Regal theatres planned to keep open Sunday night but were closed. Monday. All Gotham public transportation shut down as of 7 PM Sunday night and mandatory evacuations were ordered for low-lying areas. Box office nationally was slammed anywhere from 12%-25% on what already was a weak weekend.
Warner Bros. TV and CBS TV Studios suspended production on their New York-based TV series and pilots. NBCUniversal also halted all East Coast production for Monday. WBTV's impacted shows are 666 Park Avenue, The Carrie Diaries, The Following, Golden Boy, Gossip Girl and Person of Interest plus the pilot The Secret Lives of Husbands And Wives. The affected CBS Studios series are The Good Wife, Blue Bloods and Elementary. NBCU's affected shows are New York-based series 30 Rock, Law & Order: SVU and Smash; Infamous, which films in Philadelphia and Do No Harm, which shoots in Connecticut; as well as syndicated shows Maury and Steve Wilkos. Status of TV production will be updated as more information becomes available. Showtime's Nurse Jackie and The Big C also have been shut down today due to the storm.
Meanwhile, several film shoots in the storm's path were suspended, including Darren Aronofsky's Noah, which has a massive ark constructed at Oyster Bay, NY. Star Emma Watson tweeted the news about the production shutdown, writing, 'I take it that the irony of a massive storm holding up the production of Noah is not lost.' Warner Bros' feature film Winter's Tale was scheduled to begin shooting Monday in New York but has been delayed until Wednesday. The production team is rushing to secure sets located in flood-prone areas, particularly Red Hook in Brooklyn. Actors are hunkered down in hotels and will be staying put until further notice.
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