Preemptions of Network Programming

[rkolsen 1675]

I decided to make a new thread to discuss current or past network preemption - whether a program is preempted for moral (including religious) reasons, violent content, money as in (make goods to advertisers) and ultimately sports.

 

What prompted me to start this thread now is NBCs upcoming two-part miniseries, Rosemary's Baby, where part one airs on Sunday 11 May, 2014 @9/8 C and the second half airs on Thursday 15 May, 2014 @9/8 C both parts end at 11/10 C. And for those of you who are not aware of the storyline of Rosemary's Baby it's about the occult where a naive housewife becomes aware of a plot that she will give birth to the spawn in exchange for her husbands acting career success.

 

Needless to say when I heard of NBC's plan to recreate Rosemary's Baby I expected there would be at least a handful of stations refusing to carry the miniseries the main one in my mind would be KSL 5 TV based out of Salt Lake City and is owned by Bonneville International which is the for profit broadcasting arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a/k/a Mormons). KSL has a long history of preempting NBC network programming from refusing to run a show The New Normal about gay men trying to have a child because of it does not fit into the Mormon beliefs; it wasn't until this current season (2013-2014) that they would allow SNL to air on the regular tape delayed feed for the mountain time zone due to morals issues and they currently preempt Hannibal because of graphic content. For the record it was worked out with NBC that the shows no longer carried by KSL could be scene in KUCW usually at the same time as it broadcast live.

 

Now given what we established that KSL has preempted network programming for morals and violence grounds very regularly in the past but doesn't seem to be concerned about the lack of morals, blasphemy of religion and violence that will be aired during this four hour event show. I find it funny that a show like The New Normal which was wholesome and sweet was pulled off air for moral standards but KSL has no issue with a psycho thriller, horror show that dabbles in satanism and the occult.

 

Now my next question is what are the most common types of preempt ions that occur in your market and how often do they occur.

 

WBAL-TV is the Hearst owned Flagship NBC affiliate here in Baltimore, Md. WBAL has an older network affiliation contract where they and their Hearst sister in Sacramento, KCRA, are not required to carry the fourth hour of the Today Show during the dayside schedule apart from the Today All Night repeats that air at 2:05 AM nationally. WBAL then further preempts NBCs encore rerun of that nights Jim Cramer with Steve Harvey at 3 AM.

 

When it comes to sports WBAL-TV has in the past preempted nights of programming to carry either their sister network ESPN Monday Night Football and would simulcast the NFL Network Thursday Night Football but Thursday Night is now a package with CBS Sports. During the events leading up to the middle Jewell of the triple crown, The Preakness Stakes, WBAL does a three and a half hour pre show prior to the star of NBCs coverage preempts the a Stanley Cup which will be moved MeTV. Once the race is over they will preempt Nightly News for a,one and a half hour newscast. These preemption outside broadcasts are fairly complex and enjoyable to watch and one of the strong parts is the musical talent that has played in recent years they've had Daft punk, Macklemore and Lewis, Pitbull and this year Lorde.

 

WJZ-TV as a CBS O&O very rarely preempts programming unless it's because of a sporting game. MASN, the cable network that is majority owned by the Orioles and minority owned by the Nationals, state that their are 14 instances this summer when a MASN game will be played on WJZ pure emoting whatever CBS Sports has planned.

 

WMAR-TV, the Scripps owned ABC affiliate is a station that I rarely watch but I remember them having to preempt a pre season Monday Night Football game where WBAL-TV was supposed to carry it but couldn't preempt the Olympics that were airing on NBC. I believe the game even was produced by WBALs crew.

 

WBFF-TV, WNUV-TV and WUTB-TV are the Fox, CW and MyNetwork affiliates here I'm Baltimore that are ultimately controlled by Sinclair Broadcast group which if I recall correctly rarely preempt any program mining. But about ten years ago they forbid their ABC stations from airing a Night Line report listing the dead soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan on moral grounds and also for political motivation. Sinclair also preempted the movie Saving Private Ryan on its ABC stations for fear of being fined by the FCC.

[TriangleTriadMediaNews 267]

Raleigh-Durham area:

 

WRAL (CBS affiliate owned by Capitol Broadcasting) airs ACC basketball games during the week during college basketball season and whatever regular programming is on that night gets delegated to an overnight airing instead of being moved to 5.2.

 

WTVD (ABC O&O), WNCN (NBC affiliate owned by Media General), WLFL (CW affiliate owned by Sinclair) have never had any major programming preemptions that I'm aware of.

 

WRDC (MNTV affiliate also owned by Sinclair) used to air Charlotte Bobcats Hornets games, but that stopped a few years ago.

 

WRAZ (FOX affiliate also owned by Capitol Broadcasting) has a mile long rap sheet of preempting network programming on religious/moral grounds. They've preempted Temptation Island, Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire, Who's Your Daddy, that OJ special "If I Did It", and Osbournes Reloaded was moved to 11:35pm.

 

This is what I remember and searched on Wikipedia for the Raleigh market.

[GoldenShine9 1509]

Severe weather tends to be the most common reason for pre-emptions.

[johnnya2k6 171]

If the Atlanta Falcons play on Monday nights, WSB airs those games...pissing off many "Dancing With The Stars" fans who would either have to stay up past 2:00 am or watch it online the next day. Then again, I've read that for decades, they have always been pre-emption happy.

 

WAGA? Since becoming a Fox O&O, they've never had any major preemptions, but I'm certain they used to many times as a CBS affiliate. WXIA has sister station WATL as their NBC backup, but last weekend (5/3), WGCL preempted the remainder of CBS primetime -- including an all-new "48 Hours" -- to air the Clint Eastwood movie "Gran Torino."

 

A month or so earlier, WSB did the same thing to show the Kevin Costner stinker "Revenge" (no relation to the ABC drama series; both also star Madeline Stowe). But hey...except for SNL, nobody watches TV on Saturday nights anyways!

[travis_luznar 0]

I think that preemption based on morality or political motivation as previously stated, is ridiculous. The network your affiliated with produced the content. Viewers want to see the shows that the network airs. If you are offended morally, religiously, etc. then change the channel. You are not forced to watch the programming, you can pick up the remote and switch the channel.

 

As for sports, maybe air the network shows on a sub channel. However, severe weather is a whole different thing. If there is a tornado warning, of course they should interrupt programming and put the warning out there.

 

at WESH (Orlando's Hearst station and also the HTV Design hub) they just interrupt programming until whenever and then resume and Bill Ratner comes on saying "We now return to our regular programming already in progress."

 

(However most people are alerted of severe weather or breaking news through their phones, tablets, etc.)

[Jess 1110]

KYW, during its days as a Group W O&O that aired NBC programming, was pre-empting an hour of primetime each week to air "The Bulletin with Larry Kane", a local newsmagazine. That ended once they switched to CBS.

 

WPVI only started carrying the full ABC schedule, day and night, in 1997. They'd show the second part of whatever ABC threw on at 11, so they could do AM Philadelphia. They then expanded that to an hour as AM Live, and pre-empted the entire 11am hour. But Barbara Walters wasn't happy that her new talk show wasn't getting cleared in the fourth largest market, so...

 

WCAU is currently not carrying the entire NBC schedule, even though it's an O&O. "Early Today" is being pre-empted so they can start local news at 4am. They kind of soft-launched it shortly after the Olympics, as they were going on at 4am several times per week due to storm coverage (and at times were doing news AT THREE IN THE MORNING). Oh, and WCAU will pre-empt. Dear god, will they pre-empt.

[rkolsen 1675]

I just realized I turned this into a list thread, so sorry 'bout that.

 

 

WCAU is currently not carrying the entire NBC schedule, even though it's an O&O. "Early Today" is being pre-empted so they can start local news at 4am. They kind of soft-launched it shortly after the Olympics, as they were going on at 4am several times per week due to storm coverage (and at times were doing news AT THREE IN THE MORNING). Oh, and WCAU will pre-empt. Dear god, will they pre-empt.

I really don't think there is any reason to do news at 3 or 4 am in the morning too many people are asleep. Now if there was truly severe weather like a tornado warning in the region or a hurricane was passing by then go all out but for snow storms or rain it's overkill.

[mike91 66]

WBTV has a Carolina Camera special every once in a while that they air in primetime.

 

WSOC will usually preempt primetime to air a special at the end of the sweeps month where they basically reair some of their sweeps packages. They (and WSB and WFTV) never aired Jimmy Kimmel Live for the first few years of the program (never really understood that).

[mre29 1338]

 

If the Atlanta Falcons play on Monday nights, WSB airs those games...pissing off many "Dancing With The Stars" fans who would either have to stay up past 2:00 am or watch it online the next day.

 

The same thing happens here in the Boston area when the Patriots are playing on a Monday night. Both WCVB and WMUR will air the game instead of DwtS and Castle, but they'll move those to their *.2 subchannels (which are usually MeTV affiliates).

 

WBZ has an annual tradition of preempting CBS programming on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve to broadcast their coverage of Boston's festivities on those nights, with the CBS programming moved to WSBK. In the case of the Fourth, pretty much the entire primetime lineup (from 7:00pm on) is moved. CBS used to actually take over the broadcast for the 10:00pm hour and show it nationally, but they passed on it last year because of low ratings, though WBZ still did their broadcast.

[Glimmer 238]

Funny this post goes up tonight because something I've literally never seen in our market just happened. The golf broadcast on NBC ran overtime, with WTMJ's 6:30 program being an infomercial. So what does WTMJ do? They literally start airing the infomercial in its entirety even though it'll overlap on NBC's programming. Once the infomercial ended (at 11 minutes past 7) they joined Dateline already in progress.

[mvcg66b3r 97]

 

Funny this post goes up tonight because something I've literally never seen in our market just happened. The golf broadcast on NBC ran overtime, with WTMJ's 6:30 program being an infomercial. So what does WTMJ do? They literally start airing the infomercial in its entirety even though it'll overlap on NBC's programming. Once the infomercial ended (at 11 minutes past 7) they joined Dateline already in progress.

 

And it's a repeat from 2010.

[ehatt493 31]

Being in Kentucky, most pre-emptions here are due to severe weather. However, each year there are a few cases (usually sports) where the stations pre-empt.

 

In Lexington, WKYT (CBS) is the flagship TV station of the UK/IMG Sports Network (formerly the Big Blue Sports Network) and always pre-empts network programming for UK Basketball's first exhibition of the year. WKYT is (was?) also Lexington's SEC TV affiliate and would interrupt programming on their main channel to show the syndicated basketball package if UK was playing. They also used to move the SEC TV package over to their CW Lexington subchannel on weeknights when UK wasn't playing but I don't think they did that this past season.

WLEX (NBC) usually only pre-empts network programming for their own locally-produced Kentucky Derby coverage that leads in to national NBC coverage.

WTVQ (ABC) never pre-empts for anything other than weather since they have no real syndicated sports rights.

WDKY (FOX 56) has virtually never pre-empts for anything, not even weather. This is due to their news operation being run by WKYT. The only pre-emptions come from Sinclair's political "infomercials."

 

As for Louisville, WAVE (NBC) used to be the main SEC TV affiliate for the market but in 2013, those rights moved over to the ION affiliate, WBNA. WAVE did, however, keep the rights to air UK games in Louisville. Otherwise, they only pre-empt for their locally produced Oaks and Derby coverage.

The other stations in the market very rarely interrupt network programming outside of severe weather, other than perhaps the WHAS Crusade for Children telethon.

Before WBKI became the WB affiliate, WBNA was the WB affiliate for the market and, being owned by the Evangel World Prayer Center, pre-empted many of the more edgy and risque shows that WB aired. Eventually, WB got fed up and gave the affiliation to then Fox station WGRB (which started in Campbellsville to serve the southern portions of the market that WDRB couldn't reach) in 1997.

[tyrannical bastard 3442]

One of the more (in)famous pre-emptions happened last year when WKYC dumped a slew of Thursday night repeats for a "Matlock" movie.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/nbc-affiliate-replaces-office-matlock-425576

Their excuse was to pay tribute to the recently departed Andy Griffith, although it was a prime opportunity to dump low-rated shows for more local ad dollars.

[sanewsguy 509]

 

Funny this post goes up tonight because something I've literally never seen in our market just happened. The golf broadcast on NBC ran overtime, with WTMJ's 6:30 program being an infomercial. So what does WTMJ do? They literally start airing the infomercial in its entirety even though it'll overlap on NBC's programming. Once the infomercial ended (at 11 minutes past 7) they joined Dateline already in progress.

 

Once the time's already sold you can't really do anything about it. It's theirs. So you can't blame them for having to air the entire infomercial.

 

 

 

WBAL then further preempts NBCs encore rerun of that nights Jim Cramer with Steve Harvey at 3 AM.

 

Haha, WOAI does exactly this. They started this during the Winter Olympics this year when NBC wasn't feeding them anything overnight and so they aired their pre-empted Steve Harvey episodes at 3AM. Once the Olympics ended, they made this permanent for whatever reason. I'm guessing so they can get additional local ad revenue. Since no one's up at 3AM, guess this doesn't really make any difference however.

 

KSAT occasionally pre-empts ABC shows in primetime to air infomercials or local programming, depending on the situation.

[tyrannical bastard 3442]

 

Once the time's already sold you can't really do anything about it. It's theirs. So you can't blame them for having to air the entire infomercial.

 

 

Haha, WOAI does exactly this. They started this during the Winter Olympics this year when NBC wasn't feeding them anything overnight and so they aired their pre-empted Steve Harvey episodes at 3AM. Once the Olympics ended, they made this permanent for whatever reason. I'm guessing so they can get additional local ad revenue. Since no one's up at 3AM, guess this doesn't really make any difference however.

 

KSAT occasionally pre-empts ABC shows in primetime to air infomercials or local programming, depending on the situation.

 

Depending on the advertising contract an advertiser signs, this time can be used for "make-goods" or for added value. Sure, the value of the time is minimal, but it can used to burn off a pre-emption of a higher valued spot. For example, if a :30 spot valued at $250 is pre-empted, then it can be burned off at a cheaper rate over time. If the rate at the late-night slot is $10, then the client gets TEN airings instead of one. The rate is low since the inventory is plentiful and viewers are few and far between at that time of day.

 

It all depends on how much the client pays for the airtime itself. If the client pays a lower rate, they can be bumped by a higher paying client if the demand is there. If a client plays the highest rate for that time, they are GUARANTEED that time, and if the spot is pre-empted due to unforeseen circumstances, the time HAS to be made up in a similar fashion, or the ad time refunded.

 

Sorry to drift a little off topic, but this is a BIG reason why you see network affiliated stations pre-empting programming, especially after a ratings period, and ESPECIALLY after an election. Political airtime (the candidates themselves) have to be sold airtime at the "lowest unit rate", or the cheapest tier of advertising offered during a particular daypart. Issue advertising can be sold at the regular rates. This causes higher-paying clients to be bumped by candidates, as their ads flood the airwaves close to election time. As soon as the election is over, the make-goods are flying!

[NEOMatrix 1295]

One of the more (in)famous pre-emptions happened last year when WKYC dumped a slew of Thursday night repeats for a "Matlock" movie.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/nbc-affiliate-replaces-office-matlock-425576

Their excuse was to pay tribute to the recently departed Andy Griffith, although it was a prime opportunity to dump low-rated shows for more local ad dollars.

I honestly don't know if they still do but WKYC would also preempt NBC programming on Sundays (and sometimes primetime) to show SportsTime Ohio-produced Indians games. Now that Fox is controlling STO, I believe the number of Tribe games WKYC shows has been reduced to three.

[mvcg66b3r 97]

 

I honestly don't know if they still do but WKYC would also preempt NBC programming on Sundays (and sometimes primetime) to show SportsTime Ohio-produced Indians games. Now that Fox is controlling STO, I believe the number of Tribe games WKYC shows has been reduced to three.

 

Actually four, with one already played, all at home:

Fri 4/4 vs. MIN 3:05

Mon 6/2 vs. BOS 7:05

Fri 6/20 vs. DET 7:05

Mon 7/7 vs. NYY 7:05

[TheRob 919]

We received a lot of hate-calls and hate-messages on Facebook for covering up the first 30 minutes of NASCAR last night for tornado warnings.

[mvcg66b3r 97]

 

We received a lot of hate-calls and hate-messages on Facebook for covering up the first 30 minutes of NASCAR last night for tornado warnings.

 

I bet it's nothing compared to the hate mail received by the NBC stations in Nashville and Shreveport for not carrying soccer this morning.

[mre29 1338]

 

I bet it's nothing compared to the hate mail received by the NBC stations in Nashville and Shreveport for not carrying soccer this morning.

 

I bet the E/I rules can be thanked for that.

[TVIntheDesert 183]

 

I bet it's nothing compared to the hate mail received by the NBC stations in Nashville and Shreveport for not carrying soccer this morning.

 

Are you suggesting that there are English soccer fans in the south? :rofl!:

[NEOMatrix 1295]

Are you suggesting that there are English soccer fans in the south? :rofl!:

Suprisingly, I have sort of become interested in Premier League thanks to NBC. They seem to put out a better effort than Fox and ESPN ever did (sad part is that in Britain, 21st Fox-owned BSkyB has the majority of rights to it so you would think that Fox wouldn't half ass it whatsoever).

[rkolsen 1675]

I bet the E/I rules can be thanked for that.

I wonder what exactly for given NBC airs their E/I block on Saturday.

[johnnya2k6 171]

The same thing happens here in the Boston area when the Patriots are playing on a Monday night. Both WCVB and WMUR will air the game instead of DwtS and Castle, but they'll move those to their *.2 subchannels (which are usually MeTV affiliates).

WSB's 2.2 subchannel is also MeTV, but for some reason (probably no carriage on DirecTV/Dish), they've never moved their preempted ABC shows to them. I was hoping they would do that during Winter Storms Leon and Pax earlier this year, but NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

 

And "Washington Week"? It does air live Friday nights alright...on GPB's Knowledge subchannel (Sunday mornings on the main channel)!

 

Back in Alaska...the only stations that have subchannels are KUAC (KUAC-TV, World, Create, and UATV) and KAKM (KAKM-TV, Create, and 360 North (the latter also on cable/satellite statewide)). Maybe after KTUU moves to their new studios later this year, they'll waste no time adding a subchannel or two...or three. Same goes to KTVA, too.

[T.L. Hughes 746]

 

The same thing happens here in the Boston area when the Patriots are playing on a Monday night. Both WCVB and WMUR will air the game instead of DwtS and Castle, but they'll move those to their *.2 subchannels (which are usually MeTV affiliates).

 

KOCO and KWTV have used their subchannels at times to carry pre-empted network and syndicated shows. KOCO, like its sisters in the Boston market, carries Me-TV on its .2 subchannel and has used it to carry network shows live. However, not very many people have access to 5.2 via pay TV outside of Cox Communications and Suddenlink. A major example was during the Moore tornado last year, when KOCO ran non-stop coverage of the storm's aftermath for two-and-half-days (it also aired syndicated shows too over it). The only problem is they didn't transmit the programs in a letterbox format, either as a center cut in the subchannel's native 4:3 ratio or in a squeezed 4:3 center cut that crams everything on-screen without downconverting the widescreen ABC feed to a 4:3 letterbox. KOCO hasn't used the Me-TV subchannel though very recently during a couple of severe weather events and a wildfire that occurred over the past few weeks.

 

Since it revamped its News Now 53 cable channel into a primarily over-the-air service three years ago, KWTV has used its "News 9 Now" subchannel as a conduit to run CBS and syndicated programs that it pre-empts about 90% of the time that the main channel runs extended severe weather or breaking news coverage (I'm sure KOTV does this too, since it runs its own version). KFOR and KOKH don't do that as often (although KOKH only goes wall-to-wall if a tornado warning actually affects central Oklahoma, and not for serious breaking news or significant severe weather outside of its signal range), and when necessary, they just re-aired the shows at another time (although after the Moore tornado, KFOR did carry a couple of NBC programs, like Days of Our Lives and The Voice, on KAUT due to storm aftermath coverage).