TV Stations Across America To Bring Back National Anthem
It’s about time this tradition came back.
Patriotism wasn’t controversial yesteryear. American was good. Communism was bad. The Bible was true. People worked hard. Marriages stayed together. Kids got spanked. Life was good.
And it’s not like life is bad now. By every conceivable measure, we are materially better off (even if our souls appear to be withering at an alarming rate).
Air conditioning is pretty much everywhere (except in crazy New England). TVs are either 70 inches wide or fit on our refrigerator doors. We have satellite uplinks to every piece of knowledge humanity has formalized since, oh, Alexandria — and the uplinks fit in our pockets.
Hearts can be transplanted. Cars are safer and more comfortable (though decidedly less cool).
But material prosperity does very little for the soul.
And, it turns out, it does very little for loyalty to one’s country as well. Just look at developed countries — it seems that as wealth increases, loyalty to one’s country decreases.
Patriotism has been — and continues — dropping, the New York Post reported in July.
Nexstar Media Group, however, wants to reverse that, at least in part.
The 171 Nexstar TV stations across the country are going to bring the national anthem back to the public airwaves — a place the anthem has been missing from for far too long.
When television first began to spread across the country, stations regularly closed the broadcast day by airing test patterns and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
An old memory: The test pattern. https://t.co/wflZ9yEyFy pic.twitter.com/tetQZPqMKg
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) September 2, 2017
As 24-hour programming grew in popularity, the opportunity to close out the broadcast day shrunk, and eventually the idea of the national anthem being played on TV “just because” was lost entirely.
I had to explain this to my own children not very long ago.
I’m not sure which baffled them more — a seemingly random playing of a song at the same time every day or the idea that things didn’t air on TV 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (By the end of our conversation, they knew that the song and the playing of it was not random.)
Beginning on Sept. 2, Nexstar stations will begin playing the anthem again, but this time at the beginning of the day.
Nexstar has also added a brilliant twist to the revived tradition. Each morning, a unique version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” will play, performed by up-and-coming musicians, according to KSN News in Oklahoma.
“Nexstar’s core mission is to provide exceptional service to the local communities where we operate across America through our organization-wide commitment to localism, unbiased local broadcast journalism and telling the local stories that matter to our viewers and their families,” Tim Busch, president of Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc., said in a news release, according to The Hill.
“Nexstar’s local teams take great pride in their ability to bring the local communities they serve together and that is why we are excited to partner with BMI and Belmont University to broadcast this new daily series featuring the Star-Spangled Banner that will air 365 days of each year,” Busch said.
“This unique collaboration supports higher education in business for the music and entertainment industry, while providing aspiring professional artists and songwriters a national distribution platform to showcase their respective talents.”
The collaboration between the network and musicians will not only bring back a patriotic tradition, but it will also provide a chance for aspiring artists to get national exposure.
As globalism and attacks on America’s history and founding (like The New York Times’ “1619 Project”) increase, patriotism will decrease even faster than it has been.
One remedy for that, however, is to bring patriotism back to the forefront of the entertainment industry. Showing pride in this country and our traditions will help reinvigorate that lost patriotic spirit.
Returning the national anthem to TV daily can help make that happen.
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