Season 38 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

Thursday's Wheel is pre-empted on KHQA in Quincy, Illinois (CBS) due to the Quincy Mayoral Debate. It will air at 12:37 AM Central.

All of the Big Four signed off shortly before 8:30 Eastern.

All but one of the 6:30 Mountain airings of Wheel that I was able to check are intact right now. KMVT in Twin Falls, Idaho is pre-empting Wheel with local news. KRQE in Albuquerque is airing Wheel fine. KDVR in Denver only gave J! a 15-minute time slot since FOX thought the speech wouldn't exceed 15 minutes (lol). KDVR managed to at least show who won J!, cutting to it right before the third FJ! response.

The NCAA game overran until about 8:11 PM Eastern. Primetime slid back on the East Coast, but not in the West.

Indeed, all four of the WOF/J! CBS's in Montana aired the shows' Monday episodes on Saturday instead of their reruns (despite messing with J!'s continuity). Katie Couric's first J! episode was JIP'd after the game.

Despite Wheel remaining fully intact last Thursday, KRQE Albquerque did indeed run J!'s rerun in its entirety and JIP'd Wheel afterwards likely around late R2 or between R2 and 3. I know because I checked that and the Montana stations at around 8:16. The Montana stations were just starting Katie's first Double Jeopardy! while KRQE was showing Alex interviewing the contestants. (KRQE pre-empted Thursday's J! for the Biden address; not sure if they made it up or not).

KKTV in Colorado Springs, which pre-empted Thursday's Wheel for the Biden address, also pre-empted what was left of the Saturday rerun (assuming they kept it as such and not a makeup of Thursday) for a "Special Edition" newscast due to a snowstorm in the area. It only ran until 6:30 and J!'s rerun followed.

Speaking of WOF Weekend, there must be something on ABC on April 4. Both Wheel and J! are skipped that day on the Xfinity app listings for WABC. It's probably not a local special, because those usually don't show up in the listings until just a few days prior. Last Saturday's Wheel didn't change from 7:30 PM to 2:00 PM until just Thursday.


March Madness scheduling coming this week. Friday's the first pre-emption.

KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas (ABC) pre-empted Tuesday's episode with the Full Court Awards, a local award show for the best high school football players. Wheel aired at 12:06 AM Central.

The NFL signed some new broadcasting deals today. nflcommunications.com/Pages/NFL-COMPLETES-LONG-TERM-MEDIA-DISTRIBUTION-AGREEMENTS-PROVIDING-FANS-GREATER-ACCESS-TO-NFL-GAMES-THAN-EVER-BEFORE.aspx

The good news is that Thursday Night Football moves to Amazon Prime starting in 2023, so there are two more seasons of weekly FOX pre-emptions, but then no more after that on any network.

The not-so-good news is that, like with Monday Night Football, Thursday games will be required to be carried on a local station in both teams' home markets. This will mean more Wheel pre-emptions on affiliates that have exclusive rights to a team's games. Off the top of my head, WCCO is the Vikings' station, WKRN is the Titans' station, and WPVI is the Eagles' station. There may be more Patriots stuff on WBZ since they often pre-empt Wheel with local pregame even if the Pats game itself is on another station. At least some of their 2020 MNF games were on Boston's ABC affiliate WCVB, not WBZ.

Also on the not-so-good news front, ABC will be airing more NFL games starting in 2023, likely select MNF games like this past season, pre-empting Wheel in the West Coast, but this probably won't be on a weekly basis.

Turns out CBS Media Ventures caught wind of WNEM's early Wheel airing and called them at the last minute to disallow it from happening (even though it still happened on WRDW). Friday's episode won't air at all, but the other March Madness weekday episodes will air on WNEM's TV5+ subchannel, in People's usual slot.

I wonder if someone from there is looking at this thread considering how they've been policing many pre-7:00 EST airings this season...

Thursday's episode was pre-empted on KSBW in Monterey, California (NBC) by a COVID special, simulcast from Sacramento's NBC affiliate KCRA. Wheel did not air at all. Of all days...

A couple anomalies with tomorrow's rerun that I spotted:

WPXI Pittsburgh has gone back to airing "11 on the Ice" at 7:30 on at least some weekends, so tomorrow's Wheel will air at 4:00 AM again. Right now, the 3/27 and 4/3 reruns are listed at both 4:00 AM and 7:30 PM.

WATL Atlanta (sister to the weekday run's affiliate WXIA) is airing Wheel at 9:00 PM instead of 7:00 due to a Major League Rugby game. This is immediately after the game, so it may get joined in progress.

All of these stations aired the rerun and not Friday's episode. WOIO, WBNS, and WTOL aired it about 30 minutes later than the time listed due to overrun from the game sliding back CBS primetime and 11:00 newscasts.



It didn't! It aired.