He didn't watch TV or listened to the radio since. There is an Halacha in Hilchos Aveilus, laws that I only started to learn in the past month. The Halacha of mourning for twelve months applies only when one is mourning for a parent. For a parent it is one year. To me this didn't make sense.
People say that to lose a spouse or Chas v'Shalom a child is much harder to cope with than a parent.
A parent is different in two ways. One is that a parent is irreplaceable. You only have one father and one mother. You can get yourself another spouse, but once you become an orphan you remain so from then onwards. And for that reason, to honor your parents, to acknowledge that fact, you have an obligation to mourn for them an entire year.