Preemptions of Network Programming

[johnnya2k6 171]

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).

KPRC's handling of Conan O'Brien -- when they originally banished him to 2:40 in the freakin' morning!!!! -- was a whole lot understandable; even Conan went down to Houston with a camera crew to see if anybody there was still up at that time to watch him.

[PelicanGuy 117]

WAFB still time-shifts a good chunk of their mornning programming. Other than that, they and the other BR and New Orleans stations clear programming, except WWL. "CBS This Morning" airs on WUPL. Weather or a BIG story is the only reason for pre-emption.

[Thundershock MN 169]

What the heck I'll go ahead and jump in. I'll try not to get too "list-y." So, I'm going to omit the local sports and specials preemptions and stick more to the regularly scheduled preemptions.

 

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

Currently, In my market (MSP) most everything is aired in pattern with only notable oddity.

KSTP:

They currently air Jimmy Kimmel Live at 11pm CT & Nightline at Midnight CT. They air an hour-long newscast at 10pm CT. Hence, the 25 minute delay of the network late night shows.

 

A couple notable historical in market oddities.

KARE:

For many years delayed The Tonight Show (Carson/Leno) & SNL to 11:05pm CT. In turn Late Night (Letterman/O'Brien) were delayed to 12:05am CT. They aired MASH & Cheers reruns in the void created by the half-hour delay. This ended around the turn of the millennium.

KSTP:

In late 2008 they added an 11pm newscast. This gave them a late night news block with Nightline running in pattern at 10:35pm CT. The 11pm newscast followed at 11:05pm CT. And, Jimmy Kimmel Live on half-hour delay at 12:05am CT. In 2011 with Nightline's reduction to 25 minutes the 11pm newscast was moved up to an actual 11pm CT start time and JKL moved up to Midnight CT. That continued until 2013 when the 11pm newscast was dumped in favor of the current arrangement above. If they are going to delay ABC late night I wish they would have continued this configuration. That late night news block was unique and a thing of beauty for night owl news watchers.

 

A few out of market oddities:

KOMO/KATU:

They aired MNF on an hour delay for most it's run on ABC preferring not to delay their evening newscasts. However, it was aired live if the game involved the Seahawks.

KING:

Since NBC picked up the NHL they have dumped a lot of the Stanley Cup Final games to KONG preferring not to delay their evening newscasts.

WWOR:

I know MNT isn't a network but a programming service. But, they air the Thursday night airings of House out of pattern airing them on Saturday nights. They run a two hour Simpsons block on Thursday nights instead.

KPLR/KGWN:

Both run a "late prime" schedule. They both air a newscast at 7pm CT/MT. So, the CW prime time programming airs out of pattern running a one hour delay.

KOVR:

On the flip side it's not quite a preemption. But, they run out of pattern airing an "early prime" schedule. They run network prime time programming an hour early at 7-10pm PT. They also run an hour long 10pm newscast. And, in turn the late night programming is aired 35 minutes early starting at 11pm PT.

 

 

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).

There are still a fair amount of stations that air JKL out of pattern. The network has had a hard time getting that time back from affiliates. KSTP's general manager Rob Hubbard has stated "Any station that has negotiated the right to own that time at night is doing what we're doing"...meaning preempt JKL. It's also the reason JKL wasn't cleared on WSOC/WSB for the first several years. The network had to get that time back in order to program it. The affiliates still owned the time and, some are still able to hold out. If you ever wonder why Fox has bailed on starting up late night programming here is your answer.

 

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.

KSL due to it's ownership is always going to march to the beat of their own drum. After the 94-95 shakeup NBC really didn't have a choice but to affiliate with KSL. And, they really don't have any other choice now. For better or worse it really is what it is. I would hate to be one of the KSL MC operators. That would suck having to cover over all the "objectionable programming" promos.

[Samantha 2876]

KOVR's early prime started in 1995 (upon network switch), but it actually is the lone remnant of an early prime wave that swept Northern California in the 90s. KCRA was the first to do it, in 1991; the ratings drop was very small, and the 10pm KCRA news remained the highest-rated news program on the West Coast. The next year

and KPIX went early prime (which left KGO alone at 11). KRON switched after a year, prompting KCRA to switch back a week later (network disaffiliation pressure was apparently mounting!). KPIX stayed with early prime through 1998, which actually then prompted KOVR to do the same. (KOVR also refused to air Guiding Light from the moment it switched until the show ended, including under CBS ownership.)

 

 

KSL due to it's ownership is always going to march to the beat of their own drum. After the 94-95 shakeup NBC really didn't have a choice but to affiliate with KSL. And, they really don't have any other choice now. For better or worse it really is what it is. I would hate to be one of the KSL MC operators. That would suck having to cover over all the "objectionable programming" promos.

 

Really didn't have a choice was right. In Denver, Salt Lake City and Miami NBC was at the mercy of CBS, which of course had something NBC absolutely needed. (Not that CBS wouldn't have needed a Denver station anyway—they would have been displaced in Denver by McGraw-Hill, probably part of the reason Denver was included in that deal in the first place.)

 

I also want to reiterate something about SNL. The urban legend is that morals spurred the preemption. Nope, it was KSL's existing Saturday night sports show, but once the ratings really tanked (which took 18/19 years), they decided to cancel the Saturday sports program and air SNL instead.

[Mrtraveler01 737]

A few odd ones I know.

 

KMOV preempts a few shows. They have aired the Price is Right at 11 AM when most stations in the Central time zone air it at 10AM. They also preempt the Late Late Show. They air Inside Edition at 11:37PM and air the Late Late Show at 12:07AM.

 

I was in Pittsburgh last week and noticed that WPXI preempts the fourth hour of the Today Show. They don't air that piece until 1 PM. In my opinion, that seems really out of place.

[Leavellebrett 85]

 

I was in Pittsburgh last week and noticed that WPXI preempts the fourth hour of the Today Show. They don't air that piece until 1 PM. In my opinion, that seems really out of place.

 

WJAC does the same thing. I wonder if WTOV also does it.

[NEOMatrix 1295]

In Youngstown, WFMJ airs the third and fourth hours of Today at 10am imstead of the 9am slot most NBC affiliates go with because 21 airs Live with Kelly and Michael.

Still on the subject of NBC, I have a question. Are there any NBC stations in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones that air Days of our Lives right after Today? Seems like that would be logical for NBC to experiment with DoOL at 11am followed by the local Noon news. Come to think of it, what's stopping NBC from moving up DoOL to 11am in ALL time zones? I don't know if it could take down The Price is Right on the East Coast but it could certainly take down a now Barbara Walters-less The View.

[rkolsen 1675]

NBC really didn't have a choice but to affiliate with KSL. And, they really don't have any other choice now. For better or worse it really is what it is. I would hate to be one of the KSL MC operators. That would suck having to cover over all the "objectionable programming" promos.

Do they seriously edit out the promos? Once again I seriously can't get over the fact they didn't preempt Rosemary's Baby over morals. I guess they can teach about the evils of the devil but can't teach acceptance to gays on The New Normal and that there is no solution to violence on Hannibal. That was a cheap shot and am sorry about it.

 

NBC does own two low power Telemundo affiliates covering Salt Lake City KEJT-LP and KLUX-CD maybe one day they could be bumped up to full power and threaten to move the affiliation to one of the two. You remember how they pressured WHDH to carry The Jay Leno Show right? They pressured them by saying that it would be a major violation of their network affiliation agreement and said if they didn't carry the show they'd move it to a channel that they already own in market: WNEU which is owned by NBCUni and carries Telemundo programming but isn't operated by them. Wishful thinking most likely, it's one thing if it was a top 10 market but being DMA 33 is a different thing.

[sanewsguy 509]

In San Antonio, WOAI delays Seth Meyers by 30 minutes so they can air a rerun of Community, therefore delaying Carson Daly by one hour so they can air a repeat of the late news following Seth Meyers, and pre-empts Mad Money at 3AM for a rerun of Steve Harvey. KSAT delays Jimmy Kimmel by 30 minutes so they can air one hour late newscast. They also delay The Chew by one day so they can air a newscast at noon (ABC feeds the Chew live at Noon CT 1 eastern). That really pisses me off, not at KSAT, but at ABC for being irresponsible by not feeding the show at a much earlier time. KENS and KABB don't do major pre-emptions.

[rkolsen 1675]

In San Antonio, WOAI delays Seth Meyers by 30 minutes so they can air a rerun of Community, therefore delaying Carson Daly by one hour so they can air a repeat of the late news following Seth Meyers, and pre-empts Mad Money at 3AM for a rerun of Steve Harvey. KSAT delays Jimmy Kimmel by 30 minutes so they can air one hour late newscast. They also delay The Chew by one day so they can air a newscast at noon (ABC feeds the Chew live at Noon CT 1 eastern). That really pisses me off, not at KSAT, but at ABC for being irresponsible by not feeding the show at a much earlier time. KENS and KABB don't do major pre-emptions.

Thereby completely preemption "Today All Night" of the fourth hour. Is there some star from San Antonio that's on Community? I didn't even think it was broadcast syndicated, only cable. I get that it's a cult classic but surely there's another show that won't be burned through in half a year or less (Like Seinfeld, Frasier or Friends.)

[sanewsguy 509]

 

Thereby completely preemption "Today All Night" of the fourth hour. Is there some star from San Antonio that's on Community? I didn't even think it was broadcast syndicated, only cable. I get that it's a cult classic but surely there's another show that won't be burned through in half a year or less (Like Seinfeld, Frasier or Friends.)

 

Nah they still air the fourth hour Today repeat. The late news airs at 10 here, not 11. As for Community, I don't know why they air it. It used to be "OMG Insider!" until last fall when Sinclair moved it to CW35.

[Glimmer 238]

WISN currently airs an hourlong 10pm newscast, pushing Kimmel and Nightline back 30 minutes. But in the late 90s they pushed Nightline and Politically Incorrect back 90 minutes to carry the unlikeliest trio of programs I can think of: Hollywood Squares, Blind Date and Coach.

[Mrtraveler01 737]

 

Thereby completely preemption "Today All Night" of the fourth hour. Is there some star from San Antonio that's on Community? I didn't even think it was broadcast syndicated, only cable. I get that it's a cult classic but surely there's another show that won't be burned through in half a year or less (Like Seinfeld, Frasier or Friends.)

 

Community is being syndicated, but those that are picking it up are either/or:

 

A. Being aired on a MyNetwork TV affiliate.

B. Airing at a real late time slot.

 

A few examples.

 

It does air in Baltimore on WNUV at 3:30 AM. In DC, WJLA for some reason airs it at 1:07AM. The one example I was able to find of a normal timeslot was in Pittsburgh where it airs on WPMY at 11PM and 11:30PM.

 

Long story short, it gets the same treatment the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia package gets treated.

[johnnya2k6 171]

In Alaska: I seem to remember KTVF pushing CBS Late Night back 90 minutes or so so they could air INN News, A Current Affair, and the short-lived USA Today: The TV Show in the late '80s; then sometime in the '90s, it was Inside Edition (11:30) followed by David Letterman at midnight (KTVF had Arsenio Hall at that timeslot until he moved to KFXF in September '93 right after Dave went to CBS). KTUU until 2009 bumped the Tonight Show/Late Night by half an hour (and SNL on Saturdays) for Cheers and later Seinfeld.

 

One Louisiana TV listing from 1984 showed that ill-fated "Thicke of the Night" airing on WDSU in lieu of Letterman, and Nightline not (yet) on WVUE.

 

And back to Atlanta: Instead of Pat Sajak (which ended up on WUPA), this was WAGA's late night lineup in 1989:

[yt]VjlJrg3nfZ4[/yt]

[Samantha 2876]

Actually, New World preempted part/all of the CBS late-night lineup when it owned CBS affiliates to air its own shows—particularly "Valley of the Dolls", a 65-episode "steamy" (as seen in every article I've found) late-night soap that New World ordered in the same month as the switches, to test on seven of its stations. WJW aired it at 11:30 and moved David Letterman to midnight in the summer of 1994. It rated well but ended up being shelved.

 

In addition, as WAGA and WJBK began nearing the end of their CBS affiliations they began pre-empting CBS's lower-rated shows. Not to mention that in some markets (Phoenix, Tampa) the network morning shows moved before the networks did.

[TriangleTriadMediaNews 267]

 

Community is being syndicated, but those that are picking it up are either/or:

 

A. Being aired on a MyNetwork TV affiliate.

B. Airing at a real late time slot.

 

A few examples.

 

It does air in Baltimore on WNUV at 3:30 AM. In DC, WJLA for some reason airs it at 1:07AM. The one example I was able to find of a normal timeslot was in Pittsburgh where it airs on WPMY at 11PM and 11:30PM.

 

Long story short, it gets the same treatment the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia package gets treated.

 

WRDC Raleigh (MNTV) airs one episode of Community weeknights at 11.

[TVIntheDesert 183]

 

Community is being syndicated, but those that are picking it up are either/or:

 

A. Being aired on a MyNetwork TV affiliate.

B. Airing at a real late time slot.

 

 

Sony cleared "Community" on a number of third-tier independents, which air them in late-fringe (KDOC, KAZT). KTUD (defunct low-power independent) in Las Vegas also picked them up, but went dark not too long after it premiered in syndication.

[Rusty Muck 4159]

Actually, New World preempted part/all of the CBS late-night lineup when it owned CBS affiliates to air its own shows—particularly "Valley of the Dolls", a 65-episode "steamy" (as seen in every article I've found) late-night soap that New World ordered in the same month as the switches, to test on seven of its stations. WJW aired it at 11:30 and moved David Letterman to midnight in the summer of 1994. It rated well but ended up being shelved.

 

In addition, as WAGA and WJBK began nearing the end of their CBS affiliations they began pre-empting CBS's lower-rated shows. Not to mention that in some markets (Phoenix, Tampa) the network morning shows moved before the networks did.

Actually, WJW ran Murphy Brown reruns at 11:30, then Letterman at midnight, up until the September 1994 switch. "Late Show" was never cleared live on WJW.

 

For years prior to 1994, WJW aired sitcom reruns like "Taxi," "The Jeffersons," and "Newhart" at 11:30. They also had Arsenio Hall at midnight from 1988 until 1993. AFAIK, they never cleared any CBS late night programming - the "Crime Time" late night block was cleared on Canton rimshot WOAC/67. Not sure what station, if any, in the Cleveland market cleared Pat Sajak, but it sure wasn't WJW.

[nomadcowatbk 144]

The Kansas City stations were pre-emption Nazis in the late 60s

 

http://www.wtv-zone.com/dpjohnson/kcit50/

[nomadcowatbk 144]

American Bandstand on Saturdays never aired in Kansas City, DC still opened an AB grill there

[Brother 81]

 

A few odd ones I know.

 

KMOV preempts a few shows. They have aired the Price is Right at 11 AM when most stations in the Central time zone air it at 10AM. They also preempt the Late Late Show. They air Inside Edition at 11:37PM and air the Late Late Show at 12:07AM.

 

I was in Pittsburgh last week and noticed that WPXI preempts the fourth hour of the Today Show. They don't air that piece until 1 PM. In my opinion, that seems really out of place.

 

KMOV also pushes The Young and the Restless back to 4 pm.

 

KMOV was a bit pre-emption happy in their Viacom days. I remember David Letterman doing a skit out of KMOV finally running his show in its intended 10:35 slot, and they were one of the last (if not the last) CBS affiliate to pre-empt Tom Snyder completely. He only came aboard after Belo bought the station. And The Late Late Show has aired in the 12:07 slot ever since.

[Rusty Muck 4159]

 

NBC does own two low power Telemundo affiliates covering Salt Lake City KEJT-LP and KLUX-CD maybe one day they could be bumped up to full power and threaten to move the affiliation to one of the two. You remember how they pressured WHDH to carry The Jay Leno Show right? They pressured them by saying that it would be a major violation of their network affiliation agreement and said if they didn't carry the show they'd move it to a channel that they already own in market: WNEU which is owned by NBCUni and carries Telemundo programming but isn't operated by them. Wishful thinking most likely, it's one thing if it was a top 10 market but being DMA 33 is a different thing.

 

To be honest, Sunbeam kinda knew that The Jay Leno Show was going to be a ratings stinkbomb. I can't fault them for threatening to move their 10pm newscast from WLVI to WHDH.

 

And the only reason why the Tonight Show Host Conflict of 2010 occurred is because the majority of NBC's affiliates were demanding Leno's removal from the 10pm slot, and probably threatened to drop it altogether. One affiliate dropping the show would have resulted in an affiliation termination threat similar to their threat to WHDH, but if a whole group of affiliates dropped it, there would be no way for NBC to counter.

 

Thus, the hasty proposal of moving Leno to a truncated half-hour 11:34 show and the bumping of Conan to 12:05. The ensuing fireworks and negative press almost destroyed the network.

[Rusty Muck 4159]

Speaking of "Tonight," for nearly the entire duration of KYW-TV's existence in Cleveland, KYW refused to clear the program. ABC affiliate WEWS aired it instead, and for much of the early 60s, it was the only color program that WEWS aired.

 

In part, "Tonight" was dropped because of the disastrous "Tonight After Dark" newsmagazine experiment that ran in-between Steve Allen and Jack Parr's tenure, but it was also because Group W never wanted to be in Cleveland (NBC used extortion tactics to acquire the Channel 3 and AM 1060 licenses in Philadelphia from Group W in exchange for the Channel 3, AM 1100 and FM 105.7 licenses in Cleveland, a trade that the FTC completely voided in 1965), and had a habit of preempting NBC programs when they saw fit. To wit, "The Mike Douglas Show" originated from KYW as a locally-produced talk show at 1pm - it competed with, and eventually eclipsed, WEWS's "One O' Clock Club" - preempting whatever programs aired on NBC in that time slot.

 

When NBC was ordered back to Cleveland, Merv Griffin's daytime talk show (which KYW tape-delayed until 11:30) lasted on the newly-rechristened WKYC until September 1965, when it moved to the afternoon hours on WEWS. Mike Douglas lost his live clearance on WKYC and was scooted to the 9am hour in tape-delay. "The Tonight Show" remained on WEWS until February 1966, when it finally moved to WKYC.

 

KYW even refused to air "Huntley-Brinkley" when it began their experimental 90-minute local evening newscasts under the "Eyewitness News" banner. That preemption only lasted from 1959-1960; WEWS too carried "Huntley-Brinkley." (WEWS, AFAIK, never even carried ABC's supper hour newscast until at least the early 1970s.)

[TVNewsLover 727]

To be honest, Sunbeam kinda knew that The Jay Leno Show was going to be a ratings stinkbomb. I can't fault them for threatening to move their 10pm newscast from WLVI to WHDH.

 

And the only reason why the Tonight Show Host Conflict of 2010 occurred is because the majority of NBC's affiliates were demanding Leno's removal from the 10pm slot, and probably threatened to drop it altogether. One affiliate dropping the show would have resulted in an affiliation termination threat similar to their threat to WHDH, but if a whole group of affiliates dropped it, there would be no way for NBC to counter it.

 

Thus, the hasty proposal of moving Leno to a truncated half-hour 11:34 show and the bumping of Conan to 12:05. The ensuing fireworks and negative press almost destroyed the network.

I believe you're getting your Sunbeam stations mixed up. You mean WHDH, not WSVN, right?

[Rusty Muck 4159]

 

I believe you're getting your Sunbeam stations mixed up. You mean WHDH, not WSVN, right?

 

That's what I meant. The above post has since been edited. **facepalm**

 

It is kinda easy to confuse the two, because Sunbeam.