Season 37 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

^ How much you want to bet they swapped them on purpose so that J! could air in full? 😑

All of the following stations aired Jeopardy! in full from roughly 10:10-10:40 PM, then JIP'd Wheel at the end of R1 at the earliest:

• KSBY - San Luis Obispo, CA
• KLAS - Las Vegas, NV
• KHQ - Spokane, WA
• KFSN - Fresno, CA
• KXTV - Sacramento, CA
• KGO - San Francisco, CA
• KATU - Portland, OR

KABC does have Wheel listed first on their website, so it probably wasn't an on-the-spot swap.

The worst part? None of the stations that aired Wheel at 10:00 opted to start it from the beginning (although I do not have access to KAEF in Eureka, so I couldn't check for sure on that one). You cannot deny the double standard here. Period.

I'm really, really worried for Wheel's future at this point. If it weren't for CBS TVD continuing Roger King's wish of forcing stations to air it in the pre-primetime hour, Wheel would probably have permanent graveyard slots in some markets by now.

KXTV said it was a glitch and J! was supposed to be JIP'd on schedule instead of Wheel, and that it shouldn't happen again. Maybe try again tonight? Hopefully the DNC doesn't run over regardless.

Night 3 of DNC ran to 11:13 Eastern. West Coast stations that cut off Wheel will probably only show Round 3 onward.

WEEK 51: *RERUN* GREAT AMERICAN CITIES: SEATTLE (SEASON 33)
AND AMERICA'S GAME III (SEASON 37)


NOTES
^[1] Likely a leftover from NFL preseason scheduling, as the Colts were scheduled to play on 8/24.

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MON-THU: PACIFIC TIME ZONE & ALASKA

Due to the Republican National Convention airing on all major networks live at 10:00 PM Eastern/7:00 PM Pacific, Wheel is pre-empted on all stations in the Pacific and Alaska Time Zones. Most stations in these regions are moving their 7:00 PM hour programming to the free 10:00 PM hour. In general, Wheel will air three hours later than its usual time. The only exception for Wheel is KNSD San Diego, which is opting to air a rerun of Dateline NBC at 10:00 PM, with no Wheel until Friday. 

NOTE: If the RNC runs past 11:00 Eastern/8:00 Pacific, several stations will not air Wheel in its entirety, cutting off the beginning of the show by however many minutes the DNC overran. These stations have a red exclamation point (!) next to their air times.

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MONDAY 8/24: CBS (MOUNTAIN)

Due to the Season 2 premiere of Love Island being a two-hour event, it conflicts with the RNC in the Mountain Time Zone. As a result, most if not all CBS affiliates in the Mountain Time Zone will be airing the show at 6:00 PM Mountain instead of the customary 7:00. In these cases, 6:00 and 6:30 PM programming move to the vacant 9:00 PM hour.

The following stations are known to be airing Wheel later on Monday.

NOTE: If the RNC runs past 11:00 Eastern/9:00 Mountain, some stations will not air Wheel in its entirety, cutting off the beginning of the show by however many minutes the DNC overran. These stations have a red exclamation point (!) next to their air times.



Stations also have the option of splitting up Love Island into two separate hours, with the first hour at 7:00 PM and the second hour after the RNC. The following stations have Wheel listed at their regular times on most TV listings, but have it at other times on their websites, making it unclear when, or if, they will air Wheel tonight.

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THURSDAY 8/27: FOX

In order to avoid conflict with the final night of the RNC, during which the President will give a speech, FOX has moved the final Thursday Night Baseball to begin at 6:30 PM Eastern instead of the usual 7:00. This results in the following changes for Wheel:

• WSYT Syracuse: Thursday's Wheel will air at 5:30 PM Eastern instead of 6:00. The episode does not appear in listings at all; it is listed as Hot Bench.
• KDVR Denver: Due to the RNC airing at 8:00 PM Mountain, Thursday's Wheel will air at 1:35 AM instead of 8:30 PM.
• KVHP Lake Charles: It appears Thursday's Wheel is not airing at all this week; it is not listed on any sources.

WBZ - BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
WBZ is preempting Wheel this Friday again thanks to the airing of Patriots All Access. Friday's Wheel is being relegated to 2:07am ET replacing an infomercial.

NOTE: This is the second week in a row that WBZ has opted to pre-empt Wheel on a Friday for something that will probably get far more viewers for far less money and is thus a sound business decision despite what I think. Shame on me for promoting the great anti-Wheel conspiracy that doesn't exist, especially when it now comes with an automatic thirty-day suspension from the site. 

The 9/8 episode, which is a new episode, is also being pre-empted on WBZ. Don't know what for yet, but when I checked the WBZ listings on Zap2It, there was no airing listed for 9/8, though there was for other stations. Watch them not pre-empt the same day's J! even though that's a repeat.

I'm seriously considering making a change.org petition. Feels like WBZ has bumped at least 50 episodes this season.

NBC just announced that their coverage of the NFL Kickoff game, assuming it still happens, will begin at 7:00 PM Eastern, rather than 7:30 in previous years, and is scheduled to run until 11:30 PM. This means that Wheel's last new episode of Season 37 will be affected on all NBC affiliates nationwide, although the West Coast will probably push the show to primetime hours after the game. I was prepared to see how many stations that air Wheel at 7:00 would move J! to that slot and bump Wheel, especially since the latter is a repeat that day, but at least now that can't happen.

Source: www.nbcumv.com/news/nbc-primetime-schedule-08242020-monday-august-24-2020-sunday-september-13-2020?division=1&network=33129

This decision had to be recent. Yesterday, I checked the listings on Xfinity for the two shows that my NBC airs at 7:00 and 7:30 - Access Hollywood and All Access. The former was still listed at 7:00 on 9/10, but the latter wasn't listed at all. Today, I checked again, and now neither show is listed that day.

If I were Mike, I'd swap Thursday and Friday (not Wednesday because that has a BR win; Friday does not). Not good strategy to schedule a new episode on a day where most of the country, and possibly the contestants, can't watch it, although I get that Wheel is trying to half-bury the last two new shows anyway.

Also, it's rare that Wheel actually shuffles around episodes such that they don't get pre-empted. The only times I recall them doing so in the 21st century is when they moved up Season 20's Family Week a few weeks to avoid having it on New Year's since ABC would traditionally pre-empt Wheel with the Rose Bowl until 2010. Then there was moving the Season 26 Hawaii shows to start the Wednesday after Election Day, rather than the usual Monday. Then there was moving the third million win from Thursday to Wednesday because of CBS carrying Thursday Night Football coverage starting at 7:30 Eastern (with some stations like WBZ moving J! to 7:00 on those days, of course). You could also count Wheel's hasty mixup of the Season 34 Veterans Week so that Brenda Gallagher's win wouldn't be pre-empted. We'll see what they do this year, hopefully not premiering another ep on a Saturday.

RNC Night 3 ran all the way to 11:20 Eastern. I believe tonight's episode was a six-round game. Most of the Pacific Time Zone is probably only going to get the Final Spin onwards.

Tomorrow is the final night of RNC and that one is the biggest deal, so I won't be surprised if it overruns 30+ minutes and most of the above stations replace Wheel with J! entirely. FOX even added an extra half hour to their MLB games this week to make it less likely that they run past 10:00 Eastern.


Also, this goes without saying, but I imagine programming will be pre-empted tomorrow in Gulf Coast markets due to Hurricane Laura. Those of you in that area, stay safe.