ABC, CBS and NBC became, in effect, like cable news networks in their single-minded devotion to the story. Broadcast veterans said they couldn't recall the networks giving such extended coverage to a story since the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963.

Cable news networks CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC also followed the story exclusively.

An estimated 60.5 million people watched the attack coverage in prime-time Tuesday night on NBC (22.4 million), ABC (17.6 million), CBS (14.4 million) and Fox (6.1 million), according to Nielsen Media Research. Viewership on those four networks was up 47 percent over Sept. 11, 2000.

The three cable news networks also drew big audiences in prime-time: 7.7 million for CNN, 4.4 million for Fox News Channel and 2.4 million for MSNBC, Nielsen said. It still may be difficult to determine how many people were watching overall because cable networks that don't normally carry news - ESPN, TNT, VH1 and others - beamed coverage of the attack from other networks and their ratings were not immediately available.

''I can't imagine there were any homes in America with people in them that didn't have this on at some point,'' said David Poltrack, chief researcher at CBS.

By going commercial-free, the networks were likely losing millions of dollars in revenue. They may not have had much choice: Most advertisers aren't eager to have their products plugged during such a horrific event.

Newspapers across the country also devoted most of Wednesday's editions to coverage of the attack.

They used a variety of giant headlines: ''Day of Evil'' in California's Orange County Register; ''Day of Death'' in the Indianapolis Star; ''America Aches'' in the Knoxville, Tenn., News Sentinel. In red ink, the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., headlined: ''Terror Comes Home.'' The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Va., also used red ink for their banner: ''Horror.''

The Chicago Sun-Times displayed a small flag on its front page, exhorting readers to ''Fly the Flag.'' The final page of The Arizona Republic's 24-page special section was a picture of the flag with instructions on how to display it.

In New York's Rockefeller Center on Wednesday, the curtains were drawn around NBC's ''Today'' show studio. The street outside, normally clogged with tourists hoping to be seen on TV, was empty.

A glowering former Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf told Katie Couric that his feelings were ''a combination of deep sorrow and deep rage.'' NBC didn't bother bleeping his language when he called the attackers ''bastards.''

New York's WCBS-TV announced that two employees, transmission engineers Isaias Rivera and Bob Pattison, were missing. Both men had been at the station's transmission facility on the 110th floor of the World Trade Center.

An edgy nation watched developments unfold: a hotel in Boston surrounded by law enforcement, the Bush administration saying the White House and Air Force One were intended terrorist targets.

CNN used videophone technology - jittery pictures normally reserved for reports from faraway locales - from downtown Manhattan because the loss of the transmitters on the World Trade Center made live reports there difficult.

''You feel a mix of sadness, anger and outrage while professionally you're trying to tell the story and do it justice,'' said Eric Shawn, a Fox News Channel correspondent reporting from near the collapsed towers.

Hundreds of times on Tuesday, networks aired footage of the jetliner piercing the south tower of the World Trade Center as the north tower burned from a previous attack. In the overnight hours, a film clip of the first strike also emerged.

The footage came from a camera operator who was making a training film for firefighters in the street near the World Trade Center. When he heard a low-flying plane, the cameraman aimed his lens up at the tower just in time to catch the impact, said J.P. Pappis, editor of the Gamma Press agency, which bought the footage for an undisclosed price.

Gamma sold rights to use the footage to CNN and Associated Press Television News, he said.

New York City's local Fox affiliate set up a Web site for relatives of missing people to post pictures of their loved ones. The station took calls from family members pleading for help, including one woman, Latania Graham, who was searching for her boyfriend's brother, a Port Authority police officer.

''If anyone has seen him, if he helped anyone, he has a birthmark on his right arm,'' she said.

The Radio and Television News Directors Association, expected to bring 4,000 broadcast executives to Nashville for its annual convention this weekend, canceled the gathering.

The broadcast networks were likely to resume some regular programming on Thursday. The news networks will stick with the story.

''We're going to remain on war footing until further notice,'' said Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive. ''God knows what's going to happen next. We have to be ready for anything.''