Season 37 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

Well, J! is in repeats now, and Orlando is doing this again tonight to accommodate a special at 7:00. Although Wheel is moved an hour early to the sister station, there is no listing or announcement of this anywhere, so the only ones who would know are Wheel die-hards who call the station in advance, or Judge Jerry fans who will realize Wheel has taken one of its slots, because why move Jeopardy! early even though roughly a third of America airs it before 7:00 Eastern?

I'm starting to think Sony is putting some kind of clause in their WOF/J! contracts encouraging moves like this. "If you air Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! paired in an hour block and need to vacate half an hour for special programming, we advise that you vacate Wheel of Fortune, even if it means moving Jeopardy! to Wheel's time slot. Ignore any angry phone calls or Email complaints from Wheel of Fortune viewers because people only care about Jeopardy! and Alex Trebek. Trust us."

It's like everyone is slowly trying to take Wheel off the air more and more every year. Jeopardy! could repeat the same episode five days in a row and stations will still consider it "more important" than Wheel.

Really? Come on! At least no WPVI pre-empting their own week. WPVI likes to pre-empt shows alot.

Aaaand the Jeopardy! worshipers in Orlando just had to do something about that.


WEEK 45: *RERUN* GREAT AMERICAN CITIES: SAN DIEGO (SEASON 34)



Did Wheel do something to offend Orlando? They're suddenly churning out these random specials every other week that either pre-empt Wheel outright, or pre-empt Jeopardy! and replace Wheel with it. It's like they're slowly trying to get Wheel cancelled.

And guess what? Another one of those "Destination NY" specials is airing next week on the NY Nexstar stations, pre-empting Wheel in four markets and Jeopardy! in only one market that's smaller than those four. We're probably never going to go a full week with no Wheel pre-emptions this season. What did Wheel do to deserve all this?

The special that aired celebrated local high school students for achievements in academics, athletics, arts, and technology. They've ran the All-Stars program for many years now as a weekly segment on the late news, with all of the winners being honored at a banquet at the end of the year. With the pandemic basically shutting everything down, they chose to air a special in lieu of a banquet this year.

As for why they didn't just air it at another time, or on another station, the answer is simple: there's literally nowhere else. WWNY doesn't have a million subchannels of unaffiliated or small network stations like many others; their only subchannel is their Fox affiliate, with its own programming that they are obligated to air. It's entirely possible that the contract they have with the distributor states that they cannot air it on another channel. Additionally, unlike many other stations, they don't spend half the day airing news programming that they could easily bump; they air just an hour and half in the morning, and a half hour each at noon, 5, 6, and 11. They are also one of the few stations that signs off at night, meaning they don't run a 24-hour schedule... they can't air the show at 2am when it's literally dead air.

Despite airing relatively little news programming compared to other stations, their news broadcasts are among the highest rated in the country. It helps that it is legitimately the only station in the Watertown market that actually maintains a news department (WWTI airs news from their sister station in Syracuse, while WVNC doesn't even try), and is well regarded for the quality of reporting and fair coverage, so that hour beyond CBS Evening News (also highly rated in this market despite its third-place standing nationwide) is the best time to air such a special. Plus, parents whose children were featured will want to watch it, so they needed to air it when the majority of them would be able to.

They have also pre-empted Jeopardy many times in the past for fundraisers, while leaving Wheel alone. The fact of the matter is that Jeopardy has more viewers in this market than Wheel does. Jeopardy has more appeal because its one of the few shows remaining on television featuring smart people showcasing their skills; television as a whole these days has become filled with so much dreck that something smart is refreshing. Add to the fact that Alex's days as a host are numbered, so more and more people are tuning in to watch him while they still can; just like when The Price is Right saw massive ratings gains shortly before Bob Barker retired. Wheel, meanwhile, has become cheap over the years and is, frankly, boring. 

Let's also not forget that the show that was preempted was a rerun from four years ago. Jeopardy, meanwhile, while being a rerun, was reairing the recent Tournament of Champions...and the episode that aired on that particular day happened to feature the single most dominant champion in recent history. Take your pick. 

There is no conspiracy or anti-Wheel bias here. It was strictly a business decision. I'm sure they lost money on it either way; it was a matter of which would lose them less money.

I just noticed that FOX will be carrying MLB games on most Thursdays from 7/30-8/27, pre-empting Wheel on all FOX affiliates except KHON in Hawaii. The only exception is 8/20, but there will be undoubtedly be NFL preseason games carried on various Wheel affiliates that day, assuming they are not cancelled.

So pretty much yes, every week in Season 37, new or rerun, has had at least one station in America that did not air Wheel of Fortune on schedule five days a week. I imagine no other syndicated program has this dishonor.

To my knowledge, the last week to have no planned Wheel pre-emptions anywhere in the country was July 15-19, 2019.

WIVB - BUFFALO, NEW YORK
Last Thursday's episode (2/23/17, Cathy/Manny/Sheana) was pre-empted by coverage of severe weather, including a tornado in Portland, NY.

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NFL Preseason has officially been cancelled, meaning less Wheel pre-emptions in August and early September, including a game that was to be broadcast nationally on CBS and would have pre-empted Wheel on at least the West Coast on 8/28. However, the NFL kickoff game on 9/10, a day where Wheel will have a new episode, is still on for now.

Fortunately, WETM stuck with Wheel at 7:30 despite J! being pre-empted.

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WEAU - EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN
Tuesday's Wheel and some NBC primetime programming was pre-empted by severe weather coverage.

WEEK 47: *RERUN* GREAT AMERICAN CITIES: DENVER (SEASON 33)


NOTES
^[1] The Buffalo Kickoff Live Camp Special is not listed on WIVB, resulting in Wheel being listed at 7:00 on both WIVB and WNLO.


FOX air times will be listed in a future post. Unfortunately, this does affect the Denver market during the week that very city is being saluted, making this the third time that a GAC episode is pre-empted in its own city.

Two previously-scheduled pre-emptions for Wheel this week have been cancelled. KETV in Omaha was originally going to pre-empt Wheel on both Wednesday and Thursday of this week for two airings of the same local special, which would have moved Wheel to their .2 MeTV subchannel. However, the special has been reduced to only one airing and will instead air in primetime at 8:00 PM Central on Wednesday, pre-empting The Conners and American Housewife.

WBZ was originally scheduled to pre-empt Friday's Jeopardy! with a half-hour episode of Patriots All Access following the Pan Mass Challenge that pre-empts Wheel. But Friday's J! is now back on the schedule. In previous years, WBZ's coverage of the Pan Mass Challenge was an hour and pre-empted both shows. I'm willing to bet that they reduced it to half an hour and cancelled this week's PAA because of J! "From the Vaults". So they give J! extra special priority here, yet they couldn't give Wheel any special priority when GAC: Boston reran? Such a double standard. 

WBZ-TV Boston, Massachusetts
WBZ is once again pre-empting Wheel this Friday for the Pan Mass Challenge so Friday night's Wheel will air at 2:07 am ET following Your Move With Andy Stanley. However, WBZ's coverage of this year's Pan-Mass Challenge was reduced to 30 minutes.

Also on a positive note, Friday night's episode of Jeopardy! will air at its usual time slot as WBZ cancelled this week's PAA so no harm, no foul.