Season 37 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

Tonight's College Football game on ABC overran to 11:49 Eastern/8:49 Pacific, then ran several commercials. On KOTA in Rapid City, and presumably KGUN Tucson, only the Bonus Round of tonight's episode got to air.

Tonight's episode ended up not airing at all on KGO San Francisco.

Because of the game overage, local postgame program After the Game ran until about 9:25 PM Pacific, after which Jeopardy! began from the beginning, and commercial breaks were padded to run the show straight to 10:00, after which Nightline aired as normally scheduled, completely skipping over Wheel which was supposed to air at 9:30.

A Great American City affiliate shoving Wheel under the bus for the other game show. Typical...

WEEK 14: DISNEY SECRET SANTA I (VANNA HOSTS)


NOTES:
^[1] WVNS will announce the winning SPIN ID's on a crawl at 7:30 PM during the basketball game. The airing of Thursday's episode on Saturday is scheduled after a College Football game and a mandatory half-hour local newscast. Game overrun will cause Wheel to be pre-empted in part or in full. If the episode is fully pre-empted, it will properly air at 3:00 AM Sunday morning after the weekend reruns of Wheel and Jeopardy! (listed as Paid Programming).

More detail about tonight's situation in West Virginia. WVNS (CBS Lewisberg) knows the importance of Secret Santa, which is nice to see since this station usually does not make up Wheel at all when it is pre-empted.

WVNS' broadcast of the WVU basketball game begins at 7:00 Eastern and is scheduled until 9:00. Young Sheldon and The Unicorn are respectively bumped to 2:03 and 2:34 AM. Wheel and Jeopardy!'s Thursday episodes are being delayed to Saturday evening at their regular time slots, bumping the Saturday reruns of both shows to 2:00 and 2:30 AM.

While having an episode delayed to the weekend is far better than not airing it at all, this causes two problems for Wheel Watchers. One: SPIN ID winners only have 24 hours after the episode's official airing day to claim their winnings; if one were to win on Thursday's episode but not claim it until Saturday or Sunday, they might not be able to receive their winnings. Two: CBS has a college football game scheduled until 6:30 PM Eastern, with a local newscast at 6:30, followed by Thursday's Wheel. Every Saturday college football game on CBS this season ran past its time slot, and many stations that schedule newscasts afterward run it for 30+ minutes even if it means cutting off the program afterwards.

Fortunately, WVNS has a solution to both problems, which they kindly explained to me in detail when I contacted them. The SPIN ID's for tonight's episode will be displayed on a crawl that will run during the basketball game tonight at 7:30 PM (right after Wheel normally ends), and they will also be posted tonight on the station's website. The 6:30 newscast on Saturday will run for half an hour even if the game overruns, they confirmed, which would cut off Wheel in part or in full. If Thursday's episode on Saturday gets fully pre-empted, it will be moved on the fly to 3:00 AM, after Wheel and J!'s Saturday reruns (listed as Paid Programming; no word on whether it will move there if only part of the show is pre-empted).

Granted, WVNS' market is ranked #163 out of 210 by Nielsen, so it's not likely that one of the Secret Santa winners would be watching on there, but you never know.

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Oh, and FOX viewers, this is the last week with Thursday Night Football. Wheel returns to its normal time on Thursdays starting next week!

WEEK 15: DISNEY SECRET SANTA II (VANNA HOSTS)


NOTES:
^[1] WOLO aired ABC World News Tonight a second time at 7:00 PM in place of Wheel; local news and syndicated programs were off-air until 11:00 PM.
^[2] Friday's episode is erroneously listed twice on WFTV: Friday at 7:30 PM as usual, and also Sunday at 12:00 AM in place of the Saturday rerun.


The streak is finally broken. Between November 7 and December 18, a period of 30 consecutive weekdays, Wheel was pre-empted somewhere in America.

WIVB - BUFFALO, NEW YORK
WIVB (CBS) has already announced that Wheel will move to sister station WNLO (CW) tonight, replacing Inside Edition.

^ Good for reliability, yes, but not good for ratings. Here in the NYC area, our CW affiliate doesn't carry any game shows at all. If a CW station somewhere does carry one, chances are that a bigger affiliate under the same ownership carries another run of it (e.g. Family Feud airing one episode on CW but three on CBS; several markets air Daytime Jeopardy! on CW as well, but no CW's carry the main run of it).

And right on cue, WABC New York confirms that Wheel is on LWN tonight (replacing Glam Lab): abc7ny.com/community-events/where-to-watch-jeopardy-wheel-of-fortune/5689960/

EDIT: WPVI Philadelphia confirmed the same.

CBS affiliate WTOL in Toledo, Ohio claims that CBS will not resume their coverage until 7:30 PM. (WCBS is airing the normally scheduled Inside Edition right now) WTOL will be airing Wheel tonight, they announced. So most 7:00 PM Eastern airings of Wheel on CBS affiliates should be unaffected, but 7:30/6:30 Central airings will be lost. Surprisingly, WBZ Boston is airing Wheel right now, even though they usually replace it with J! when 7:30 is pre-empted.