Fox doubles down on NFL pregame coverage with move of "NFL Kickoff" from Fox Sports 1

[T.L. Hughes 746]

"Fox NFL Kickoff", one of the first programs to air on Fox Sports 1 when it launched in 2013, is moving to Fox beginning in September, giving the network two hours of NFL pregame coverage as the show will now lead into "Fox NFL Sunday". Fox has asked its stations to clear the 11:00 (Eastern Time) hour to carry "NFL Kickoff", which will no doubt lead to some complications during the NFL season for Fox affiliates that air weekend morning newscasts as well as those that fill the aforementioned hour with E/I content.

 

No decisions have been made about who will serve as hosts or analysts (including those other than Donovan McNabb that will be carried over from the previous season) or if any alterations to the show's format will be made. However, "Fox NFL Kickoff" and "Fox NFL Sunday" will have separate hosts. Colin Cowherd, whose contract was not renewed by ESPN on July 16, is reportedly in discussions to possibly appear on the show.

 

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/07/20/Media/NFL-Kickoff.aspx

[Mrtraveler01 737]

So this will basically follow Fox News Sunday so there isn't that gap between that and Fox NFL Sunday. It does make sense although I'm sure the affiliates aren't that thrilled about it because some of them like to do local versions of their own pre-game shows before leading into Fox NFL Sunday. A couple things I do wonder:

 

1. Why not simulcast this on Fox Sports 1 instead of some NASCAR programming? It would be a good opportunity to cross-promote a brand that desperately needs it.

 

2. Will CBS respond with an 11AM show of their own? I can't see why they wouldn't.

[TheOneManHerd 553]

The NFL is, by leaps and bounds, the biggest draw on television. This is a great move.

[T.L. Hughes 746]

Further down in the linked article, John Ourand wrote this about how affiliates are reacting to the decision:

 

Fox’s affiliates appear to welcome the move, happy to add another hour of highly rated NFL programming to their schedule.

As far as CBS doing this... well, remember that CBS News Sunday Morning runs for 90 minutes and Face the Nation is now an hour (even though some affiliates don't carry the full hour-long broadcast, though a few, like KWTV, have started to air it in full). t would be tough for CBS to expand its pregame show one hour earlier without cutting into the length of at least one of those two shows during the NFL season.

[TheRolyPoly 1843]

 

2. Will CBS respond with an 11AM show of their own? I can't see why they wouldn't.

 

One... some CBS affiliates already do pre-game shows of their own, including my own WFOR 4 which does "The Joe Philbin Show" and "Dolphins Weekly LIVE" at 11am and 11:30am, respectively during the NFL season.

 

Two... Face the Nation is still on at that time for those that don't do pre-game shows.

 

Three... other stations could be doing local news by that time.

 

So... no.

 

This move by FOX already upsets some stations that do local news at either 11am ET (ex. WJW 8), 10am CT (don't know who), 9am MT (not sure either) or 8am PT (ex. KPTV 12, KTVU 2, etc.) on Sundays.

[Mrtraveler01 737]

 

Further down in the linked article, John Ourand wrote this about how affiliates are reacting to the decision:

 

As far as CBS doing this... well, remember that CBS News Sunday Morning runs for 90 minutes and Face the Nation is now an hour (even though some affiliates don't carry the full hour-long broadcast, though a few, like KWTV, have started to air it in full). t would be tough for CBS to expand its pregame show one hour earlier without cutting into the length of at least one of those two shows during the NFL season.

 

KCTV has their own pregame shows leading into The NFL Today and already preempt shows like CBS Sunday Morning and Face the Nation (KCTV used to preempt it until 1:35AM the next morning during football season and not sure if they still do that).

 

Maybe CBS affiliates might not be as flexible as Fox affiliates seem to be.

[SteveKendall 29]

 

KCTV has their own pregame shows leading into The NFL Today and already preempt shows like CBS Sunday Morning and Face the Nation (KCTV used to preempt it until 1:35AM the next morning during football season and not sure if they still do that).

 

Maybe CBS affiliates might not be as flexible as Fox affiliates seem to be.

 

KCTV does not preempt "CBS Sunday Morning"...I'm pretty sure the station has regularly cleared the show since its debut (or pretty close). KCTV does, however, delay "Face the Nation" for Chiefs-oriented pre-game shows during football season and local news the rest of the year.

[mrschimpf 2051]

I'm assuming a few big-market stations with NFL teams (examples off the top; WITI in Milwaukee, WFLD in Chicago) wouldn't be happy with an hour being taken from them. Both those stations produce long-running pre-game local content, and then there are a few (read for Fox especially, a few) that have their local political shows in that 11am/10 Central slot.

 

That, and you also have Sinclair with their weekly political show with Sharyl Atkinson premiering in October which was specifically designed on their stations to follow the network SMTS's like Fox News Sunday; I assume Sinclair is a bit perturbed and doesn't want this effort, like their show with Armstrong Williams, to be pushed off into the overnight Sunday black hole on their Fox stations. CBS's lack of clearances for that last half-hour of FTN is specifically due to local political and pre-game shows, and I'm surprised Fox, which basically had to appease their affiliates by slow-dumping the Saturday morning infomercial block with E/I content, is trying to take an hour with a show that didn't do too well on FS1 last year (re.Mrtraveler, "NFL Kickoff" aired on FS1 since launch and is moving to the main network).

[NEOMatrix 1295]

2. Will CBS respond with an 11AM show of their own? I can't see why they wouldn't.

I doubt CBS will do a 11am pregame show. Most affiliates in the NFL markets have their own pregame shows ("Tailgate 19" on WOIO, "Steelers Kickoff" on KDKA, etc). Trust me, the affiliates don't want to lose that.

[nomadcowatbk 144]

 

KCTV has their own pregame shows leading into The NFL Today and already preempt shows like CBS Sunday Morning and Face the Nation (KCTV used to preempt it until 1:35AM the next morning during football season and not sure if they still do that).

 

Maybe CBS affiliates might not be as flexible as Fox affiliates seem to be.

 

KCTV airs 2 hours of news on Sunday morning's when it's not football season, punting the other 1/2 hr of Face the Nation to KSMO late night

[T.L. Hughes 746]

I'm assuming a few big-market stations with NFL teams (examples off the top; WITI in Milwaukee, WFLD in Chicago) wouldn't be happy with an hour being taken from them. Both those stations produce long-running pre-game local content, and then there are a few (read for Fox especially, a few) that have their local political shows in that 11am/10 Central slot.

 

That, and you also have Sinclair with their weekly political show with Sharyl Atkinson premiering in October which was specifically designed on their stations to follow the network SMTS's like Fox News Sunday; I assume Sinclair is a bit perturbed and doesn't want this effort, like their show with Armstrong Williams, to be pushed off into the overnight Sunday black hole on their Fox stations. CBS's lack of clearances for that last half-hour of FTN is specifically due to local political and pre-game shows, and I'm surprised Fox, which basically had to appease their affiliates by slow-dumping the Saturday morning infomercial block with E/I content, is trying to take an hour with a show that didn't do too well on FS1 last year (re.Mrtraveler, "NFL Kickoff" aired on FS1 since launch and is moving to the main network).

Well... outside of WBFF and WLUK, most of Sinclair's Fox stations (especially the dozen-and-a-half that have their newscasts produced through news share agreements) don't have weekend morning newscasts, so scheduling "Full Measure" could be as easy as putting it before "Fox News Sunday" as a lead-in. That would work if the station has a free hour on Sunday mornings that they're only using for infomercials (as is the case with KOKH, which programmed a political talk show in the 8:30 slot before "FNS" called "The Middle Ground" that ran for a few months beginning late last summer) and not for any additional E/I content.

[mardek1995 200]

I doubt CBS will do a 11am pregame show. Most affiliates in the NFL markets have their own pregame shows ("Tailgate 19" on WOIO, "Steelers Kickoff" on KDKA, etc). Trust me, the affiliates don't want to lose that.

I can see your point. For one thing, even though CBS 11 in some of its most recent promos bill it as "The Official Station of the Dallas Cowboys", Fox seems to be trying to pry the preseason away from it to Fox 4, not to mention the fact that Fox 26 doesn't nearly air as much of the Texans' games as KHOU does. And as an additional conflict, there's the bay area and the NYC area markets, both of whom have two teams in the same market. So how is Fox going to be able to sandwich the preseason in those markets?

[Mrtraveler01 737]

I can see your point. For one thing, even though CBS 11 in some of its most recent promos bill it as "The Official Station of the Dallas Cowboys", Fox seems to be trying to pry the preseason away from it to Fox 4, not to mention the fact that Fox 26 doesn't nearly air as much of the Texans' games as KHOU does. And as an additional conflict, there's the bay area and the NYC area markets, both of whom have two teams in the same market. So how is Fox going to be able to sandwich the preseason in those markets?

Both those markets are duopolies. So Fox can move their pregame show or the local one to KICU and WWOR respectively.

[Rusty Muck 4164]

I doubt CBS will do a 11am pregame show. Most affiliates in the NFL markets have their own pregame shows ("Tailgate 19" on WOIO, "Steelers Kickoff" on KDKA, etc). Trust me, the affiliates don't want to lose that.

And in the case of WOIO, the second half-hour of "Face The Nation" which is preempted by "Tailgate 19" runs in late nights on WUAB.

 

In WJW's case, they air an 11am newscast and a half-hour informercial from a local realtor group at 11:30.

[oklahomanewsman 210]

Further down in the linked article, John Ourand wrote this about how affiliates are reacting to the decision:

 

As far as CBS doing this... well, remember that CBS News Sunday Morning runs for 90 minutes and Face the Nation is now an hour (even though some affiliates don't carry the full hour-long broadcast, though a few, like KWTV, have started to air it in full). t would be tough for CBS to expand its pregame show one hour earlier without cutting into the length of at least one of those two shows during the NFL season.

Yeah that's one thing I've noticed on KWTV is they're airing a full hour of FTN on Channel 9 I thought they would place either the first or second half hour of FTN on KSBI but I guess they decided to put all 60 minutes of FTN on KWTV.

[oklahomanewsman 210]

Staying on topic I think it's a great move for Fox and as long as their affiliates welcome the idea that's all it matters in my opinion.