<P> For the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in 2011, the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade invited family members from Tuesday's Children, a family service organization that has made a long - term commitment to those directly impacted by the attacks and terrorism around the world, to cut the ribbon at the start of the parade with NBC's Al Roker and led the parade with Amy Kule, the Parade's executive producer . </P> <P> More than 44 million people watch the parade on television on an annual basis . It was first televised locally in New York City in 1939 as an experimental broadcast on NBC's W2XBS (forerunner of today's WNBC). No television stations broadcast the parade in 1940 or 1941, but when the parade returned in 1945 after the wartime suspension, local broadcasts also resumed . The parade began its network television appearances on CBS in 1948, the year that major, regular television network programming began . NBC has been the official broadcaster of the event since 1952, though CBS (which has a studio in Times Square) also carries unauthorized coverage under the title The Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS . Since the parade takes place in public, the parade committee can endorse an official broadcaster, but they cannot award exclusive rights as other events (such as sporting events, which take place inside restricted - access stadiums) have the authority to do . The rerouting of the parade that was implemented for the 2012 event (see below) moved the parade out of the view of CBS's cameras and thus made it significantly more difficult for the network to cover the parade (though the route now passes along the west side of the network's Black Rock headquarters building along Sixth Avenue, and the hosts are stationed on a temporary tower platform at the Sixth / W. 53rd St. corner of the building); CBS nevertheless continues to cover the parade to the same extent as in previous years . </P> <P> Since 2003, the parade has been broadcast simultaneously in Spanish on the sister network of NBCUniversal (Telemundo) host by María Celeste Arrarás from 2003 - 2006 . The parade won nine Emmy Awards for outstanding achievements in special event coverage since 1979 . </P> <P> At first, the telecasts were only an hour long . In 1961, the telecast expanded to two hours, and was then reduced to 90 minutes in 1962, before reverting to a two - hour telecast in 1965; all three hours of the parade were televised by 1969 . The event began to be broadcast in color in 1960 . NBC airs the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade live in the Eastern Time Zone, but tape delays the telecast elsewhere in the continental U.S. and territories from the Central Time Zone westward to allow the program to air in the same 9: 00 a.m. to 12: 00 p.m. timeslot across its owned - and - operated and affiliated stations; since the morning program's expansion to three hours in 2000 and eventually to four hours, NBC's Today only airs for two hours Thanksgiving morning as a result, pre-empting the latter two talk - focused hours of the show for the day . NBC began airing a same - day afternoon rebroadcast of the parade in 2009 (replacing the annual broadcast of Miracle on 34th Street, which NBC had lost the broadcast television rights to that year). CBS's unauthorized coverage airs live in most time zones, allowing viewers to see the parade as many as two hours before the official NBC coverage airs in their area; CBS still broadcasts the parade on delay on the West Coast, immediately after the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving game in years when CBS carries it, or at 9 a.m. local time in years they carry the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game . </P>

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