Season 37 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

WLS - CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Wheel was pre-empted again on Friday for another address from Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

KCEN - TEMPLE, TEXAS
Friday's Wheel was pre-empted by coverage of a protest honoring local police shooting victim Michael Dean.

As always, Boston continues to show extreme favoritism to Jeopardy! and shove Wheel under the bus, manipulating the two shows' ratings and then using the ratings gap between the two shows to justify why they constantly do this. I don't care that J! is new and Wheel isn't; they always do this regardless of whether either show is a rerun or not. Sony should not allow stations to replace Wheel's time slot with J! unless Wheel can get a favorable time slot as well, like what WXIX Cincinnati does with Thursday Night Football conflicts (Wheel at 6, J! at 7). If stations are going to dump another show to avoid bumping J! overnight or to a subchannel, they should at least pick another show that actually is a significantly-lower-rated competitor and not its equally-iconic sister program.

Mike Richards needs to know how poorly Wheel is treated in Boston and should have a conference with WBZ. They pre-empt the show dozens of times per season, more than any other market, but heaven forbid anyone should ever have to watch J! at 2:00 AM unless it's the same for Wheel. With the exception of the impeachment last December, J! never gets bumped overnight unless Wheel does too, and if it happens during a tournament, it gets the extra benefit of airing twice - on sister station WSBK at 7:30 and again overnight on WBZ after Wheel. Situations like this, combined with Sony's general favoritism towards J!, is a major reason why Wheel has not beaten J! in ratings for over a year, even though it used to always do so except if Ken Jennings was involved.

I'm calling it now. Either WBZ pre-empts one of the GAC: Boston reruns, or a pre-emption occurs during one of the two first-run weeks in August and WBZ will still give the priority to J! even though Wheel will be new while J! will presumably be a package of random, non-continuous reruns. Wheel needs to stop partnering with affiliates that treat the show and its fans like garbage most of the year.

Oops! Since J! pre-emptions typically get much more outcry than Wheel ones, I'm sure KDVR got a lot of phone calls that night. Hopefully they made up that episode. J! also got pre-empted on KABC Los Angeles on Wednesday by coverage of the earthquake (Wheel was not), so they delayed the show the rest of the week; Friday's episode aired on Saturday followed by Wheel's S36 rerun.

KOLN - LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
Tuesday's Wheel was fully pre-empted by severe weather coverage.

KKCO - GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO
Tuesday's Wheel was pre-empted by a local Senate Democratic Debate. It will air at 2:00 AM Mountain.

WCTV - TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA
Due to severe weather, Tuesday's Wheel was broadcast at a slightly reduced size likely to allow for a crawl.

WBNS - COLUMBUS, OHIO
At least half of Wednesday's Wheel was pre-empted by severe weather coverage. Judging by the livestream of said coverage on their Facebook page, they signed off around 7:45 PM Eastern. Wheel was definitely on by the Bonus Round.

WBBH - FORT MYERS, FLORIDA
According to several complaints on social media, Wednesday's Wheel was interrupted a total of three times for severe weather updates.

I freaking called it! 




WBZ, you have reached a new low. Screwing over three locals who don't get to relive their glory three years later, and bumping a showcase of their own city, because they'd rather everyone watch a repeat of Jeopardy! instead.

How is Wheel still letting this happen? This will now be the twenty-sixth time in Season 37 that WBZ has pre-empted Wheel on a weekday for local reasons.

WEEK 42: *RERUN* GREAT AMERICAN CITIES: BOSTON (SEASON 34)


NOTES
^[1] The GEICO 500 race was delayed to Monday from Sunday due to rain. It was scheduled to end at 7:00 PM Eastern, but went into overtime.
^[2] The Destination NY special is re-airing on the same stations Saturday 6/27 at 7:00 PM Eastern, also pre-empting this week's Saturday rerun of Wheel.



WBZ makes me sick. Pre-empting an episode they helped make possible just because they like that other game show better.

WBMA - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
WBMA confirmed Wheel is airing as normal Tuesday and the newscast listing for 6:30 is a mistake, probably accidentally carried over from another station since they have never done local news at 6:30.


WIVT - BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK
Although it has yet to be listed on any source, WIVT confirmed they will be pre-empting Wheel on Wednesday with the Nexstar NY special. However, they are doing something very unique to make up for it. Since the special pre-empts Wheel on both Wednesday and Saturday, Wheel will air a total of three times on Friday! The Wednesday episode and Saturday rerun will both air on Friday at 5:00 and 5:30 PM Eastern in place of The Dr. Oz Show. Friday's episode will air as normal at 7:00.

And what makes it deplorable is that this is happening during a week that WBZ partnered with Wheel to make happen.

At this point, Wheel could spell out the cure for cancer on the board while the same day's Jeopardy! episode could be 30 minutes of a jar of mayonnaise and WBZ (and other stations) would still find an excuse to bump Wheel and keep J! and then the latter still comes out on top in ratings. Every time I complain to WBZ, their programming director has an apathetic attitude and basically just implied that she won't do anything better for Wheel than overnight airings because she personally doesn't like the show.

And people still don't believe me when I say that there's a general bias for Jeopardy!...