Lights out!

KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES

CBS added insult to injury Sunday night when it delayed and then cut short coverage of a landmark Billy Joel concert.

 The much-touted broadcast began 30 minutes late because CBS wanted to show the end of the Masters Tournament. I used to play golf, and sometimes enjoyed it, but TV coverage of professional golf has always struck me almost as exciting as watching grass grow.

 When the Billy Joel concert did not begin promptly at 8, I thought perhaps CBS had inserted coverage of some major event – specifically, something involving Iran’s attack on Israel. So why, I wondered, did no other network delay its programming?

 That’s because only CBS carried the Masters, and apparently golf reigns over good sense CBS.

 Then the part that is simply insane. In the middle of Joel’s last song, his trademark “Piano Man,” CBS cuts to black and cues its local stations to begin their delayed 10 o’clock news shows. (Only in Central and Eastern time zones, though, because apparently nobody important lives out here.)

Heads may be rolling today at CBS. Probably heads should roll, but not just the one who punched the “out” button at the end. The strange ending only capped a flawed broadcast.

The show was the 100th sellout concert in Joel’s monthly residence at Madison Square Garden in New York. Joel and his band were in fine form. But CBS made two huge mistakes going in.

First, it mixed up the set list. Musicians draw up a set list to build a performance to perfect pitch. So you have to wonder why the musical geniuses at CBS saw fit to toss Joel’s set list and substitute their own.

Second, CBS inserted far too many commercials. Mostly these were boring ads for way-too expensive medications and lame promos for lame CBS prime-time series.

And that’s probably why the show ran overtime. If CBS had cut one or two unnecessary commercial breaks, it would not have had to cut the show short. CBS brass had to have known going in that the broadcast would go over two hours. So why did someone panic when it did?

Responding to widespread viewer anger, CBS has apologized for the “programming timing error” and promised to show the whole thing again Friday night. Think it will cut any of the ads?

Sometime back in the 1980s, Linda and I saw Billy Joel live at Kemper Arena in Kansas City. We were mostly spellbound during the broadcast Sunday night. After more than 50 years of making music, Billy Joel still has it. He’s an incredible performer. That a TV network would butcher his signature song on its 50th anniversary during his 100th sellout show at Madison Square Garden is almost unthinkable.

 But these days the unthinkable is almost routine.

 Stay tuned after this commercial break for live coverage of the Second Coming of Christ (unless a sports event runs long).