The American-led air attacks on Afghanistan claimed a casualty at home on Sunday: The 53rd Annual Prime-Time Emmy Awards were postponed just hours before they were to air and be watched by an audience of millions. 
It was the second time that the Emmys, the television industry's highest honors and its equivalent of the Oscars, had been postponed in three weeks. The show was originally scheduled for Sept. 16, five days after air attacks on New York and Washington stunned America. 
No decision has been made yet on when or if it will air at a later date, the organizers told a packed news conference. 
"We're not at this point calling it a cancellation," said Bryce Zabel, chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. "We're looking at all the options. ... We've simply gone ahead and said for now we're postponing." 
The three-hour Emmy broadcast was to have aired on CBS from 8 to 11 p.m. EDT and would have drawn top stars to the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles and to a studio in Manhattan, where New York-based nominees were set to attend. 
Zabel said the financial loss to CBS and the academy would be "potentially in the millions of dollars," since advertisers pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single 30-second commercial. The show's production also requires months of planning and thousands of man-hours. 
But Zabel was quick to say: "This isn't about dollars. This is about doing the right thing." 
The program was originally postponed after aerial assaults on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 killed nearly 5,600 people. 
The only other time it has been affected by world events came in 1978, when the ceremony was delayed by about 30 minutes by the announcement of the 1978 Camp David Accords by then President Jimmy Carter, Zabel said. 
Les Moonves, the head of CBS Television, said he spent the morning talking to scores of industry leaders, executives of rival networks and program producers, and the prevailing sentiment was to postpone the Emmys. 
"Certain high-profile shows and casts did not want to participate," Moonves said. "They weren't being jerks. They weren't being prima donnas. They didn't feel appropriate coming down here and participating." 
Moonves, who said he had been at ground zero in New York just last week, tried to put the decision in perspective. 
"This is television," he said. "It's really small potatoes compared to what's going on out there in the world. ... It's a tough decision we've all had to make. I want to go out and puke right now." 
Don Mischer, executive producer of the Emmys, said there had been no direct refusal by anyone to take part if the show had gone on. 
He added that host Ellen DeGeneres was "very emotional and somewhat devastated" when told of the postponement after rehearsing late into the night on Saturday and again early on Sunday morning. 
"She put a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of personal emotion into this," Mischer said. 
Zabel said security, which was as tight as for a presidential visit, was not an issue in the postponement. He said there was no direct threat to the show and everyone involved felt comfortable with the measures in place. 
Because of national mourning, the Emmy presentation had undergone a major transformation before the latest postponement. Actors and actresses had been asked to dress somberly in business suits and modest dresses instead of tuxedos and evening gowns. 
Mischer said the show would have included several emotional segments, including an opening by veteran newsman Walter Cronkite and a closing from New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. 
One of the segments was to have shown how the world had supported the United States after Sept. 11. That spot brought DeGeneres to tears, Mischer said. 
"I felt very good, and our team felt very good, about where we were because the awards were going to be distributed in kind of an understated way," he said. "But we have six or seven emotional high points that I think would have meant a lot to the American people had we been on the air with them tonight." 
He and Zabel agreed that perhaps the most emotional tribute, taped just this morning, featured a New York policeman singing "America the Beautiful," backed by a chorus of 300 college students. 
"It was very emotional. It was very emotional and seemed very appropriate at this time," Mischer said.