Season 36 Pre-emptions Thread

While this anomaly was two months ago, it's worth noting.

On Tuesday, May 21, ABC O&O KFSN in Frenso, California accidentally aired the wrong episode of Jeopardy! at 7:00PM PT. They decided to rectify by pre-empting Wheel on the fly so that they could air the correct episode of Jeopardy! immediately afterwards (which featured Holzhauer; the "wrong" episode did not), meaning that J! got an impromptu double-run. Wheel was bumped to 2:11AM PT.







This was yet another example of Jeopardy! getting extreme VIP treatment during Holzhauer's run, with Wheel stuck on the sidelines even worse than usual. Another example that I discovered recently: KGO San Francisco pre-empted both game shows on April 26 and 27 because of the NFL Draft. J! aired at 8:30PM PT both days. Wheel aired at 10:30 on the 26th and was initially scheduled for 9:00 on the 27th to follow J!, but was then bumped to 2:00 AM with a rerun of 20/20 taking over the 9:00 slot. Despite J!'s still-favorable time slots, KGO re-aired both the 4/26 and 4/27 episodes of J! the following Sunday night at 10:00 and 10:30 PM (Yeah, let's make every effort to inflate Jeopardy!'s ratings without affecting Wheel's!). Wheel's episodes did not get this treatment, of course.


Here is an updated list of stations that have, or will, pull the "replace with Jeopardy!" treatment on Wheel, so stay cautious if you're a Wheel fan in these markets. WDIV Detroit gets taken off the list since they stopped doing this by January, and WXIX Cincinnati stopped by June (they now move J! to 6:00PM ET to replace Daytime J!). WMBD Peoria, WETM Elmira, and KFSN Fresno get added since they were all guilty of it at least once this season. While WABC New York technically did this as well during the Draft situation, the J! replaced Wheel on a Saturday and not a weekday episode, so I am not counting it here.

NFL Preseason Football is now in full swing. A total of 21 affiliates around the country will be pre-empting Wheel either tonight or tomorrow for local games or pregame shows.

Many affiliates will not be airing Wheel at all because, since these games are not national broadcasts, the respective networks' primetime lineups are affected as well, and make-goods for those programs often leave little to no room left in overnight time slots.

Jeopardy! is only affected on 10 of these 21 stations pre-empting Wheel, plus at least one other. WBBH Fort Myers has Wheel listed tonight, but no J!.


THURSDAY, AUGUST 8 (OAD MAY 16)


^[1] Not in listings; WNEM-DT2 still has Access and WBFF Baltimore still has Live PD.
^[2] The ATL @ MIA game is scheduled to end at 10:30, so Wheel may get partially or fully pre-empted on WFTV Orlando if the game runs over.
^[3] WMBD Peoria has Wheel listed at its normal 6:30 time slot in addition to the actual 1:37 make-good.


Totally shocked at WBZ and WKRN being involved with this. How dare they pre-empt Wheel for the thousandth time this season?!

Oh, now KABC decides to go the one-day-delay route (same with J!). Would have been nice if they did this when they were airing the season finale week instead of showing the two in reverse order, or showing J! overnight and Wheel not at all...

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 9 (OAD MAY 17)


^[1] WVUE has local news scheduled after the game at 10:30, followed by Wheel. If the game runs over, the news may pre-empt Wheel.



I reached out to several of these stations. Here is a kind, but iffy response from the station manager at KATC Lafayette:


Yeah, I'm calling BS on this. WBZ Boston airs Wheel in late night almost weekly without problems, and KABC Los Angeles is airing a Friday episode on Saturday this week. If they bothered to maybe ask somebody at Wheel or CBS TVD for permission to move the show in this fashion, there's no reason for them to say no. And yes, this station carries both runs of Jeopardy! and neither is affected, of course...

If what he says about Wheel being #1 in Lafayette is true, it's nice to know that Wheel still beats Jeopardy!, Feud, and even Judge Judy somewhere.

With all the work you put in contacting these stations, I'm picturing some sort of general managers convention where each one thinks they have a Robert Santoli clone in their market.

Wheel and Jeopardy! are pre-empted in three markets tonight by local events.


WILKES-BARRE, PENNSYLVANIA
WBRE (NBC) is airing the 2019 Little League Grand Slam Parade from 6:00-8:00PM ET. Wheel and Jeopardy! are not airing at all.


KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE
Due to the 2019 Friends of the Smokies telethon airing from 7:00-8:00PM ET on WBIR (NBC), Wheel and Jeopardy! will air on sister channel 10News2.


ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA/GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA
WLOS (ABC) is also airing the Friends of the Smokies telethon. Wheel and Jeopardy! will air at 1:07 and 1:37AM ET in place of Paid Programming.

That's a far cry from the 33 times Wheel has been pre-empted this season in Boston and 27 times in Nashville, and both these numbers will increase in the coming days.

Tonight's Wheel is affected by some NFL preseason games as well as local specials in two other markets.


LANSING, MICHIGAN
WILX (NBC) will be airing a local special titled Decades with the Dean from 7-8PM ET. Wheel and Jeopardy! will air on its .3 Antenna TV subchannel in place of Archie Bunker's Place, though that show still appears in listings.

SAN ANGELO, TEXAS
KLST (CBS) is pre-empting Wheel with the Concho Valley High School Football Preview Show. Wheel will air at 12:37AM CT. Jeopardy!'s two runs are unaffected, because of course they are.


NFL PRESEASON
Thankfully, less Wheel affiliates are airing games this week compared to last week.

*May get partially or fully pre-empted if the game runs long.


WAFF Huntsville told me that they didn't think it was worth airing Wheel overnight since they can't air it on a subchannel.



WBFF Baltimore continues to avoid the perfectly logical tactic of airing Wheel on its sister station WNUV (which already airs the weekend run) instead of overnight, several hours after Jeopardy!'s unaffected slot.

Interesting that KGO San Francisco is airing Wheel and J! in the opposite order, with Wheel immediately after the game at 8:00 and J! at 8:30. My guess is they slotted them this way because they don't want to risk J! getting joined in progress or pre-empted entirely if there is overrun from the game, but don't care what happens to Wheel. Hopefully the Raiders game ends on time.

Another example of blatant favoritism from an affiliate...

So while WILX Lansing did treat Wheel fairly by moving it to a subchannel to make room for a local special, Jeopardy! still managed to get better treatment to maximize its ratings. They even use J!'s logo as the picture in their article, which mentions that in addition to J! moving to the subchannel along with Wheel, the same episode of J! would also air on WILX early at 12:00PM ET (in place of Daytime J!), meaning the episode would air twice but Wheel's only once.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
ABC O&O WPVI is pre-empting Wheel tonight with a local special titled "The Auto Experience". Wheel will air at 1:07AM ET. Jeopardy! is unaffected, because of course it is. The special will also air this Saturday at 7:00, pre-empting Jeopardy!'s Saturday rerun, but of course Wheel will be the only one of the two to suffer a ratings loss because the Saturday reruns of both shows are counted separately in Nielsen ratings. More sabotage and not even by football this time.

Counting national ABC pre-emptions, this makes 8 pre-emptions of Wheel on WPVI in Season 36. Comparatively, Jeopardy! has only been pre-empted four times: Christmas Day NBA (national), NFL Draft (national), the recent shooting, and Black Friday College Football, in which case J! was moved overnight in advance out of fear of its timeslot being pre-empted by overrun (which it was), while Wheel stayed scheduled at 7:30 and was pre-empted after the news was forced to run until 8:00, and it did not re-air.



SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA
After accidentally having it listed last Tuesday instead of this one, ABC affiliate KSFY will be pre-empting tonight's Wheel with a local sports special titled "Pigskin Preview". Wheel is not airing at all. Jeopardy!'s two runs are unaffected, because of course they are. The station manager justified the lack of a makegood for Wheel by politely explaining that they do not prioritize makegoods of any program if it's in a rerun period.

Due to tornado warnings in the Hartford area last night, all four major network affiliates in the market pre-empted all programming from 6:00-8:00PM ET for coverage, including Jeopardy! and Wheel on ABC affiliate WTNH.