Some things in life are certain—death, taxes, a new season of Survivor . The other was Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Even after Dick Clark died of a heart attack in 2012 at the age of 82, the show continued. Ryan Seacrest takes over hosting duties (the man doesn't sleep) and the New Year's Eve establishment is buzzing again. But how do you watch Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve 2017 and join in the festivities if you don't have a TV? Cable or not, you just need to see the ball drop.
We now think of New Year's Rockin' Eve as a must-have show on December 31st, but it actually supersedes its larger predecessor. According to People magazine , Clark created the show as a younger version of big band frontman Guy Lombardo's New Year's Eve show. Clark believed Lombardo's show was aimed at an older audience, and he saw an opportunity to get kids excited about watching TV as the new year rolled around.
"That's why we put 'Rock' in the title," Clark said in an interview cited by People and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . "Let everyone know this is going to be a different approach. This isn't the Waldorf Astoria with people in tuxedos and funny hats dancing with their faces in." It started in 1975 (by Three Dog Night Hosted by the band, not Clark), it took only five years for New Year's Rockin' Eve to beat the competition.
This year, Mariah Carey will perform one last big performance of 2016 before the ball drops. Before Kelly, stay tuned for performances from DNCE, Gloria Estefan and the cast of On Your Feet and Thomas Rhett. Jenny McCarthy and Fergie are also back, helping Seacrest with coast-to-coast hosting duties, along with 200,000 of her closest friends flooding the streets of Times Square. Interestingly, according to the show's synopsis, Carey was the first artist to perform live in Times Square in 2005! It definitely makes sense that she would be back to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Rockin' New Year's Eve.
If you don't have a TV at home, or you're going to a party at a friend's house who's turned down cable, streaming Rockin' New Year's Eve is easy. ABC.go.com offers live streaming of all network programming as long as you log in with your cable subscription and stream in participating cities. You can also download the ABC app (for free) to watch the live broadcast on other devices. If you don't live in one of the selected places, check out any apps or live streams available through your own cable provider - many allow you to live stream TV to multiple devices.
The New Year's Rockin' Eve festivities begin at 8pm ET on New Year's Eve and continue into the early hours, and I think the ability to livestream is a testament to the forward thinking Clark had when creating the show. Clark learned from American Bandstand that young people liked to watch music on television, so he wanted to create a special New Year's Eve program for young people, and it was a huge success.
Today's generation seems to prefer streaming viewing to traditional broadcast viewing, and New Year's Eve Rockin' Night continues to attract younger viewers as the way they watch evolves. Now, whether you have a TV or not, you and your family can watch the ball drop in Times Square from the comfort of your own home. Happy New Year!
