WheelWarrior

They also did that with Wheel of Fortune during the Olympics, but not when it was pre-empted by the US Open or NFL Kickoff game, nor when the Saturday reruns get pre-empted by College Football games that start at 7:30 ET.

Do you think that has anything to do with FOX's inane insistence in 2021 that postseason MLB takes three hours? I would hate to work on an "11:00" newscast and just be sitting around waiting until 12:30 or later to even start it. I'm sure some stations just prerecord a full 30 minute newscast and program it to start after the game so everyone can go home and sleep. TBS slots their MLB postseason games for four hours, so why won't FOX? FOX Hawaii, KHON, always runs its 6:00 newscast in full, and it's the only program in their post-sports lineup that slides and airs in full. Since Wheel of Fortune airs at 6:30 and stays there during DST (it only moves to 8:00 on sports days after DST ends, when Hawaii is 5 hours behind EST instead of 6), it almost never airs on days with MLB postseason games, because the news often doesn't get to start until 6:30 Hawaii time or even later; the normal programming schedule gets JIP'd as soon as the news runs a full 30 minutes.

WSBT South Bend is finally able to air Wheel, but with a tech difficulties card during the commercial breaks and "WSBT - SOUTH BEND, IN" still written in the bottom-right corner throughout instead of their usual bug. Wheel is still off-air on WGFL Gainesville, it seems; their P+ feed is still showing the 7:00 ET version of CBS Evening News.

A viewer of WPDE in South Carolina reported that a local newscast repeat randomly cut in at about 8:55 PM ET which pre-empted the end of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and much of Supermarket Sweep. Fortunately, both were repeats of their season premieres.

Luckily, KDNL in St. Louis appears to have everything back up so they can run tornado warning information right now.

KHQA was. They have not been able to air syndies all this week.

KPTH in Sioux City has their local and syndie operations back up and running, at least on DT3 CBS (formerly KMEG). KDBC is still having some problems in the news studio, but syndies and commercials are back to normal. Means no more slates for J!/WOF, though.

Was KTUL able to air syndies, at least? I don't see any "Where is ______?" complaints on their Facebook other than the morning news.

WPBN was able to air Wheel and Jeopardy! today but without commercials. KBOI appears to be back to normal with syndie and local ad programming. KDBC is still having problems. Portions of their newscast appear to be prerecorded and played back on a Mac computer, and their end card is shown on monitors instead of being directly fed. Their airing of Jeopardy! today had the slate. After that finished, they played a stock footage clip of aerial views of El Paso twice. After that, Wheel of Fortune started with the first three seconds or so cut off (so the opening was just "...of... Fortune!") Here's the end of their 5:30 newscast and the start of Jeopardy! 586191555_KDBCNewsJSlate10-20-21.mp4

There was no Wheel of Fortune tonight on WGFL in Gainesville, FL.

KIMA is airing BBT with commercials right now. No Jeopardy! or presumably Wheel of Fortune on KVAL in Eugene, OR. Repeat of CBS Evening News is airing right now at 7:00 PT, unless it's just the P+ feed not airing the shows. KBAK Bakersfield, KAEF Eureka, KATU Portland, and KOMO Seattle are all airing either Jeopardy! or Wheel right now with proper commercials. KBAK's P+ feed is airing CBSN, though.

KBOI in Boise is not airing Jeopardy! or Wheel, either. 8:00 ET/6:00 MT was CBSN and 6:30 was the West Coast feed of CBSEN. KDBC in El Paso did air the shows, but the commercial breaks just had a tech difficulties/please stand by card. Right before Wheel started, they actually aired the slate that is normally not supposed to be aired. WOF 10-19 KDBC Slate.mp4

Checked the following Sinclair stations that air Wheel of Fortune on Tuesday night at 7:00 or 7:30 ET and they were airing The National Desk instead: - KHQA Quincy, IL - WSBT South Bend, IN - KVII Amarillo, TX KPTH-DT3 Sioux City was showing CBSN on Paramount+ instead of Wheel. Not sure if that was also the case OTA. A couple of fans in Michigan on Twitter were saying that there was no WOF or J! on Monday or Tuesday, with one of them saying that they were replaced with Wipeout reruns (which I believe are meant for weekends; WABC airs those after midnight on Saturdays). I'm guessing this was WPBN in Traverse City because the only other Sinclair station based on Michigan that carries the duo is WWMT, and they aired the shows fine yesterday and today OTA, and today is back to normal on the P+ stream as well (yesterday had a repeat of CBSEN at 7:00).

WTOV posted this notice. According to comments on their Facebook page, J! and Wheel last night were replaced with a "news show", and the same is happening today with 25 Words or Less and Kelly Clarkson.

Even though he'd always only get to watch half of it at best?

Does this only affect local news or does it affect network and syndicated programming too? I tried to watch Wheel on WWMT tonight and their Paramount+ feed was just the CBS network feed; as soon as CBSEN signed off, there was a black screen for a few moments, then the 10-second countdown into the version that is feed at 7:00 ET. However, the feed of WWMT on my IPTV was showing Wheel. cbsenrepeat.mp4

What I don't get is, why doesn't CBS just take the 7:00-7:30 slot since CFB never ends before 7:00 on CBS because of the postgame show? This has been going on for years. At least ABC's games sometimes ended at 7:00 when they did 3:30-7:00/8:00-11:30, but even then they just decided, "Screw it. Our stations don't always get to air news or programming between the games so let's just close up that hour from now on." Why not just make 7:00 on CBS "College Football Postgame" like FOX does with "The OT", and encourage CBS affiliates to air local news at 7:30/6:30c leading into primetime? I'm sure some will still schedule syndies at 7:30 but I bet many would do news, and it least it wouldn't mean a syndie seldom or never getting to air in its entirety. WCBS actually schedules ET Weekend, which is an hour long, for the full hour, so it never airs more than the latter 45 minutes (though I believe it re-airs late at night on WLNY at least). I'm pretty sure CBS is the only network that will always follow CFB games with several minutes of talking heads even if they're close to or over the scheduled end time. FOX does this with MLB playoff games and the World Series too. ABC does it sometimes with NBA, but not always, and usually not with CFB anymore. Even ABC schedules MNF to 11:15 when they do national simulcasts from ESPN since they don't expect it to be over at 11:00, though some West stations awkwardly schedule half a syndie from 8:15-30 PT. Many just schedule 45 minutes of news but won't run it past 9:00 PT unless the game ended after 8:30.

Stations seem to have different policies on whether to strictly stick to their listed schedule when it comes to running newscasts after sporting events that run long, or to run that newscast for the full 30/60 minutes and JIP programming afterwards (or slide those shows back to air in their entirety). The most frequent time this comes into play is Saturdays on East Coast CBS affiliates during college football season. CBS always schedules games to run from 3:30-7:00 ET (sometimes with another one from 8:00-11:30), but I have never, not once in years, seen this game end before 7:00. Most of this season's games have ended around 7:15, and some went to 7:30 or even 8:00. Although the games do sometimes end before 7:00, CBS will always run a sponsored postgame show until 7:10-15. Although whatever program is at 7:00 ET never airs in its entirety if at all, affiliates still have to schedule something in the prime access hour. Usually they'll put a syndie like Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, Judge Judy, or ET, but others do local news, especially in the Central Time Zone that would already have 6:00 news anyway. Some Eastern stations do 7:00 (or later) newscasts as a delayed edition of the 6:00 news). What stations have a policy of running the news for a full 30 or 60 minutes if it starts late, and which ones will end it on the hour/half-hour or skip it to avoid messing with other programming? Is there any reason why a station would choose one or the other? It really seems to vary. Could it be dependent on how popular the 7:30 show is? O&O KYW 3 in Philly does a 7:00 newscast and runs it for a full 30 minutes, or until 8:00 if it starts after 7:30. If there's time before 8:00, Inside Edition Weekend gets JIP'd. However, fellow O&O KTVT 11 in Dallas does not run the 6:00 news past 6:30 (or technically 6:27; when CFB goes to 6:30 CT, Wheel of Fortune gets JIP'd a couple minutes in because KTVT always starts it immediately following the news signoff). I'm not sure if KTVT starts the news after the game or if they just do it starting at 6:00 for live streaming or replays and it gets JIP'd on TV after the game. KHOU 11 in Houston (owned by Tegna) also ends their 6:00 news at 6:30 no matter when it starts. Although they don't do it often anymore, when WABC 7 does a 7:00 newscast after a sporting event, it does not always run a literal 30 minutes. It won't go past 7:30 if it starts earlier than 7:10 or so. If it starts around 7:10-20, it will run until 7:45, and if it starts well after 7:20, it goes until 8:00. I recall the ABC college football finale in 2020 signing off at 7:01 ET, and a lot of ABC stations that air Wheel of Fortune at 7:30 JIP'd it about 2-3 minutes into the show following full newscasts, but WABC started it uninterrupted following a 28-ish-minute newscast. I also recall this being the case back when ABC used to leave the 7-8 hour to the affiliates between CFB games; they now run straight from 12-11+ ET. This is also prevalent on West Coast stations that schedule "special edition" newscasts in primetime slots following sporting events that air live on the East Coast. KOMO ABC 4 in Seattle always runs news for at least 30 minutes (sometimes trimmed down from a scheduled 60 minutes or 45 when Monday Night Football is scheduled nationally on ABC until 8:15 PT, but always a 30-minute minimum), but almost-always slides back all its subsequent programming, even later newscasts. WKYT CBS 27 in Lexington, KY does something unique. During CFB season, they do the 6:00 news live on its DT2 CW subchannel, and schedule a repeat of it at 7:00 on CBS, which gets JIP'd. Wheel of Fortune's weekend run gets moved to CW at 6:30 following the live news, since it would never air in its entirety in its normal 7:00 slot on CBS. As for 10/11 PM newscasts, I have never seen any station truncate these, not even FOX affiliates that start them well after midnight following very long MLB playoff games.

This week began FOX's weekly screwing with prime access, fortunately for the last season. On Thursdays until TNF on FOX is done, WNYW moves You Bet Your Life up to 6:30 replacing one run of TMZ (they did the same last season when TMZ was at 7:30). WLUK in Green Bay does what they've always done: 5 PM newscast is shortened from 60 minutes to 30, allowing Wheel of Fortune to air an hour early at 5:30 PM Central, the only pre-access hour airing anywhere in the US on a semi-regular basis (not counting all the random time slots WOF Weekend gets moved to during college football). Of course, FOX will presumably still pre-empt 7:30 ET for World Series pregame and the WWE SmackDown season premiere preshows (the latter of which is optional; many non-O&O's bump this to sisters or subs). To think FOX wanted Wheel/J! on the O&O's.

The incompetence of WTNH in Hartford/New Haven, CT pretty much answered this. It's likely one big file. Last Friday, WTNH not only began airing the wrong episode of Wheel of Fortune, but they timed the commercial breaks incorrectly and kept cutting off the show in the middle of rounds, and leaving the actual commercial breaks as blank screens. Then halfway through the show, it kept switching back and forth between the wrong episode and the right one. What the heck was going on in the master control room that night? https://streamable.com/zqytp6

Proof: The show did not have the FOX bug, either. Although aside from the brief WWOR ID at the top of the show, the usual "my9" bug in the bottom-right never appeared, either.

NY people, any particular reason why WWOR My 9 is pre-empting MNTV primetime Dateline for an encore of last night's Masked Singer at 8 and the premiere of The Big Leap at 9 (which is also airing at 8 on FOX)? They weren't pre-empted last night.

Turns out they changed the rotation at the last minute, and the listings weren't updated until yesterday. Starting this week, rather than running current episodes on a one-week delay as once listed, DJ! is actually running the post-Trebek episodes in order for now, starting with Ken Jennings' first episode that aired the Monday after Trebek's last. J! Weekend is still running Mayim's episodes from last season. Her eps of last season will run out after 11/20, so it is not yet known which host the rotation will jump to after that.

Question for those in the industry... are syndies sent as one big file of the full episode, or is each segment its own file? A friend of mine was watching Wheel tonight and texted me asking if my airing was "messed up" like his. He said his affiliate accidentally skipped Round 3, then aired Round 4 twice in a row. If the files are individual segments, I could see that being an easy mistake to make. I do know that Wheel has issued SD episode masters on DVD's for contestants who request them, and there are about two minutes of silent black screens where the commercial breaks would be.

WTSP in Tampa, FL added a logo bug to its syndicated programming starting today. I watched most of Wheel on it last week and there was no logo during any part of the show, but today, a "10 Tampa Bay" bug appeared at the start of each segment.