WheelWarrior

WDAF in Kansas City has temporarily moved Wheel of Fortune to 1:00 AM due to the Chiefs being in the Super Bowl. It returns to the normal time on Saturday (one day before the big game, funny enough). https://fox4kc.com/news/red-day-specials-move-wheel-of-fortune/ Doing this for an entire week seems pretty extreme. They also did this in 2020 and 21. Do any other stations ever move or pre-empt syndies for a week or more for planned stuff like this? I remember in 2019, WXIA shifted Wheel to WATL for the entire week leading up to that year's Bowl since Atlanta was hosting the game.

Another oddity with WPXI: They swapped Wheel and Jeopardy! back in July, but starting in September, Jeopardy! moved back to 7:00 on Saturdays only, and the Saturday run of Wheel got relegated to 4:30 AM Saturday morning. At first, this was done to accommodate local program "The Jerome Bettis Show" and NBC's package of Notre Dame Football games which start at 7:30. Now that NFL season's come and gone, Jeopardy! is still airing at 7:00 on Saturdays and 7:30 is now random specials or infomercials, with Wheel still airing at 4:30 AM.

Not unless Wheel's prime access hour mandate is lifted, which I doubt will ever happen given that the only reason it exists was to avoid being slotted too close to the former NBC/CBS daytime version, which has been gone for over 30 years. Way back when, WPTZ was interested in picking up Wheel but they could only fit it at 5:00 PM. KingWorld said no deal and it went to a competitor (they do carry it today at 7:30). KTRK would have to truncate the 6:00 newscast which they never like to do. Any time the ABC O&O's put out a special that pre-empts Wheel on the other O&O's, KTRK airs it 3:30 to pre-empt Inside Edition before all the news. They also do not carry the CMA Red Carpet special that ABC feeds to the O&O's just before the ceremony (similar to how the NBC O&O's start Rockefeller Center Christmas Celebration at 7 instead of 8).

Are you sure KWGN double-ran J! at 2:00 and 2:30? That would mean the KDVR/KWGN duopoly carried three runs of J! total, which CBSMV doesn't offer. What does this mean? Is Conners in syndication already? And I thought WFTV was airing WOF/J! Weekend Sundays at 5:00 and 5:30 PM during football season (with WOF first instead of J! likely because they would rather WOF be the show that gets JIP'd after WNBA or MLS overrun than J!; they were reversed last season). Also, speaking of Good Doctor, it is part of the CW+ lineup weekends at 7 PM, replacing MacGyver. There appear to be two feeds of TGD similar to what they did for Schitt's Creek: one feed for markets that only air one unique ep per weekend, and one for markets that air two episodes per weekend.

9-1-1 has not been cleared in NYC. WCBS got Magnum P.I. at 12:05 AM, and Major Crimes replaces Bull at 2:05. The latter will also air in random weekend afternoon slots on WLNY.

A lot of affiliates do that, including some of the ABC O&O's. WABC airs it at 2:37 AM. WPVI does not carry it anymore since they start their morning news at 4:00 AM (WABC starts it at 4:30) so there's no room in the overnight lineup for it. KGO added it this past season at 4:00 AM. KABC does not carry it, but it's only a matter of time before they decide to drop the last remaining portion of ABC World News Now on the lineup and need something to replace it with.

^ At this rate, I won't be surprised if by the end of the decade, J! is offered up to a quad run and Wheel is still one single run restricted to the prime access hour.

Is there any chance that CBS will extend the scheduled end time to 7:30 or 8:00? CBS has the worst on-time performance of CFB broadcasts because, no matter what time the game ends, they will always do roughly 10 minutes of the Rocket Post Game Show. Most commonly, I notice the game itself ends around 6:55, but affiliates will not begin programming until about 7:10. I have been following this for about four years now, always briefly tuning into a CBS affiliate (usually KYW, which does news at 7:00 during CFB season) at 7:00 or 7:05, and only once (not counting days with cancelled games) have I not seen the fourth quarter still in the homestretch or a table of talking heads. Why doesn't CBS just schedule to 7:30 and encourage its affiliates to do 6:00 news at 7:30/6:30c? With the way it is now, news crews always have to wait for everything to finish (unless they prerecord), or whatever program airs at 7:00 (or 7:30 after news in many cases) never airing in its entirety. Other networks generally only do post game shows similar to CBS's if they have a lot of time to fill.

They could always air infomercials in that slot for now... Better that than where they have been airing lately: Between September 1-9, WHP is pre-empting Wheel of Fortune four times for Time Life gospel infomercials! Obviously, Jeopardy! is not affected by this (since affiliates are apparently not allowed to pre-empt J! but not Wheel, and if they have to, J! needs to move to the Wheel slot). No sign of this continuing after the season premiere at least, but still, even if it's in repeats, pre-empting a Top 5 syndicated program four times in a week and a half over shows that are leaving feels like it shouldn't be allowed. Could this be a Sinclair thing? They already do this a lot with WOF on Saturdays but not right now since College Football on CBS means the Rocket Post Game Show always causes the 7:00 slot to get JIP'd.

The Good Doctor officially begins its run in syndication starting September 17. Although it does appear the Castle and Wipeout reruns are ending (the latter is no longer even carried by WABC, apparently replaced with Entertainers with Byron Allen and repeats of random O&O specials), TGD will not be going to the ABC O&O's. In NYC, WPIX will air TGD Saturdays at 3 PM, although Xfinity only lists it for the 17th so far and not the 24th. Also no ep info but it will surely be S1 E1.

Despite the O&O's using Dateline as a replacement for Ellen, it looks like Dateline will still be part of the MNT primetime lineup, but not the same episodes fed for local syndication. Dateline is still listed on WWOR primetime after 9/12.

It looks like, unlike Ellen, Jennifer will offer a second run, leaving Wheel as the only first-run daily syndie that still does not do a second run at all, all because of its former daytime version that's been off the air waves since 1991.

Are you sure about Wheel? Wheel has never offered a second run. One was almost rolled out in the 2012-13 season, but it would have had a rule that it could not be paired with the daytime Jeopardy! run. Assuming Wheel is still strictly single-run, maybe WILX could use this opportunity to bring back 25 Words or Less after they dropped it this past season and no competitors grabbed it, AFAIK. Or they could move up Kelly Clarkson from its graveyard 3 AM slot.

In Syracuse, Jennifer Hudson has been picked up by WSYT FOX 68. This will be their first talk show in a long time. Currently, the WSYT FOX/MyTV duopoly consists entirely of sitcoms, pretty much all the court shows, and Wheel and Jeopardy!.

It looks like WCAU had been planning to air a "Best of" special of the concert tonight at 7:30. Presumably due to the events, it reverted back to the regularly-scheduled Access Hollywood.

WPXI in Pittsburgh will be swapping Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune starting July 4. Wheel will now be at 7:00 and Jeopardy! at 7:30, matching Youngstown neighbor WKBN (but not WTOV Steubenville which still does J! at 7:00). It remains to be seen how they will handle 7:30 pre-emptions. I imagine there will be a lot more outcry when The Olympic Zone pre-empts Jeopardy! than when it would happen to Wheel. In that situation, Wheel would move to PCNC during Olympics. The Saturday runs of Wheel also get pre-empted during NFL season for The Jerome Bettis Show, so that will presumably apply to J! next season, unless they act like WTWO Terre Haute and swap the two shows on Saturdays only, or do what WTHR Indianapolis does (as they claim CBS Media Ventures contractually forces them to do even on Saturdays) and move J! to 7:00 and bump Wheel. Wonder why they're doing this. Could it be so that people who get both WPXI and WTOV will get two chances to watch their preferred game show, or watch them both in their preferred order?

WDAF really can't decide what to do with Jeopardy!, can they? That's its second time slot change in less than a year, and the first time it won't be aired in a double run. At least it still has the privilege of rarely being pre-empted by FOX sporting events, unlike its sister show. Even with TNF leaving FOX, there is still the World Series whose pregame show will pre-empt Wheel on all game days (and the game will push back its late night time slot further since FOX still thinks postseason MLB can be done within three hours), and it's also possible WDAF may bid for local broadcast rights to Chiefs TNF games (I don't believe they have ever aired MNF games; those typically air on KMBC).

Last Wednesday, due to the tragedy in Uvalde, NBC Nightly News did an hour-long edition with the second half-hour optional, depending on the affiliate. I remember in the 2010's, any time something really big happened, all of the Big Three evening news programs would do optional hour editions. I specifically remember Sandy Hook, the 2013 Moore, Oklahoma tornadoes, the 2016 San Bernardino shooting, and the death of Nelson Mandela all being covered in special hour-long editions. However, I don't recall any of the three doing this since the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Was this the first time any of them did an hour edition since then?

Ryan Field was supposed to go skydiving on a segment for WABC's annual "summer kickoff" special (airs every Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend), but the plane couldn't take off due to weather. They ended up sending him to iFly in Paramus instead.

^ That 7:00 newscast must have been a fluke or maybe a trial for a potential permanent 7:00 newscast next fall when college football starts. CBS once again had PGA scheduled until 7:00 today, but this time WCBS ran "New York by Design", a localized version of "America by Design", a program syndicated to some of the CBS O&O's. Just like what KYW does with its 7:00 news, WCBS ran NYBD in its entirety following PGA overrun then JIP'd Inside Edition shortly after 7:30. Listings for next Saturday also show NYBD at 7:00.

I saw from a few sources that Good Doctor will apparently be going into off-net next season. It was previously slated to roll out this season but nobody ever cleared it. I'm willing to bet that the ABC O&O's will use it as a replacement for Castle, which WABC and WPVI both run late Saturday nights.

Judging by the descriptions on these listings, it looks like today's episode is the final episode hosted by Ellen herself, but not the actual series finale. Next week (barring Monday, a repeat) will have various guest hosts still under the Ellen moniker, with Friday June 3 being the last episode with any new material. Starting June 6 are compilation episodes of "Ellen's favorite guests".

According to Xfinity listings, it looks like Kelly and Ellen are simply swapping time slots on WNBC and WVIT starting June 8. Ellen is now listed at 2 PM, with many of the June episodes listed as new (probably guest hosts or the proposed "compliation" eps), and Kelly will move to 3 PM as we knew already.

Noticed yesterday that following PGA, which was scheduled to end at 7:00 (but ran until about 7:25), WCBS scheduled a 7:00 newscast and Inside Edition Weekend, instead of the usual Entertainment Tonight Weekend for the full hour. This is what KYW always does when CBS has a sporting event scheduled until 7:00 that pre-empts the 6:00 news, but this is only the first time I've seen WCBS do this. And like KYW, WCBS runs this 7:00 newscast for a full half hour even if the sporting events runs long, then joins IE in progress if there's time left, which I don't believe there was last night. Is KTVT the only O&O that truncates its 6:00/7:00 post-sports newscasts if there's overrun, rather than running it in its entirety and JIP'ing programming afterwards?

NYC has one airing of TMZ Hip-Hop on WWOR (Not WNYW) weeknights at 11 PM, temporarily replacing the "E" run of Family Feud. This was also the secondary slot used for the Pictionary test run. Not sure why they couldn't just sacrifice one of the three daily airings of the half-hour regular TMZ on WNYW (6:30p, 4:00a, 2:00p next day).