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Only a brief pause from TV bickering with Obama’s second inauguration

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Richard Smith watches President Barack Obama deliver his inaugural address during the ceremonial swearing-in, on a television at a Best Buy department store in Springfield, Ill., Monday, Jan. 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

NEW YORK, N.Y. – The second inauguration of President Barack Obama has given television networks a chance to bask in the majesty of a Washington event that unites Americans of all beliefs and ideologies — at least momentarily.

Then they returned to widely divergent views on what people had just seen for themselves.

ABC, CBS, NBC and the cable news networks cast aside regular programming Monday to carry the ceremonial swearing-in and Obama’s inaugural address. It didn’t carry the same attention Obama’s first inaugural did. In 2008, even ESPN and MTV covered the swearing-in. This year, ESPN stuck to talk about the upcoming Super Bowl and MTV aired “Catfish: The TV Show.”

Obama’s inaugural address lasted about 18 minutes, only slightly longer than the inaugural poem, but shorter than the evaluations of on-air pundits.

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