Season 39 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

Today's rerun (#S-7249RR, OAD 10/8/2020) is affected on the following:

- WABC New York by the NYC Auto Show
- West Coast ABC's by the NBA Playoffs
- All FOX's by USFL with pregame starting at 6:30 ET
- All NBC's by USFL except most 7:00 ET airings
- Eastern Time Zone CBS's by the PGA Masters if coverage overruns to 6:30 ET or later (due to 6:00 news makegoods)


WABC will air Wheel at 2:00 PM ET Sunday.

NBC's coverage of USFL has no pregame and is scheduled from 7:30-10:30 ET. This is followed by what will appear to be a half-hour edit of a repeat of The Wall, which will air at 8:00 in the Pacific Time Zone leading into SNL, with 7:30 PT open to the affiliates. Because of this, KNSD San Diego is planning to show J! at its normal time (likely JIP'd if there's overrun) but no Wheel at all for the weekend. And as usual, WTHR Indianapolis is moving J! to the Wheel slot of 7:00 ET and Wheel overnight, because they claim CBSMV's contract forces them to do so (though WBBH Fort Myers is not doing this; Wheel is still at 7:00 and no J! this weekend).

The original airing of this episode was pre-empted on FOX stations (except 7:00 airings) by the first Thursday Night Football game of the 2020-21 season, and now it will be pre-empted again on that network. FOX is, for some reason, airing the exact same game, but they have a one-hour pregame special starting at 6:30 ET. There are no other sporting events in the afternoon, so affiliates do have the option to show Wheel early. WDAF Kansas City has Wheel at 3:30 CT today, and WVUE New Orleans at 5:00 CT just before the pregame. Since FOX's broadcast is also scheduled until 10:30 ET/8:30 MT, KDVR is showing J! at 8:30 MT and no Wheel at all for the weekend, not even overnight.

7:00 ET CBS airings and WBNS Columbus may be pre-empted on the fly by local newscasts if PGA, scheduled until 6:00 ET, runs over to 6:30 ET or later, although stations are also allowed to pre-empt CBS Weekend News in this scenario and do 7:00 programming as normal. Central Time Zone should not be affected as long as PGA is over by 6:00 CT.

FOX had NASCAR scheduled until 7:00 ET today, but it overran to about 7:13, which means Wheel will be JIP'd on WDAF Kansas City following a full newscast. WXIX Cincinnati apparently anticipated overrun, so they put two programs from the PowerNation TV syndication block at 7:00 and 7:30 as filler; they will instead air Wheel and J! at 1:00 and 1:30 PM ET on Sunday. Besides that, no sports should have affected Wheel tonight. The first airing of tonight's rerun was pre-empted on CBS by March Madness, but nobody should have pre-empted this episode more than once out of the three times it has now aired.

Monday's episode (#S-7586) is moved on both Mountain ABC affiliates that carry Wheel, due to tonight's episode of American Idol airing live in all time zones.

KOTA in Rapid City, SD will air Wheel at 8:00 PM Mountain (technically 8:01), right after Idol.
KGUN in Tucson, AZ will also air Wheel at 8:00 PM local time, although in this case, it's not immediately after Idol because Arizona is currently on Pacific Time.

This should only affect Mountain Time Zone airings of Wheel, including Arizona since Wheel still airs in the 6 PM hour there regardless of whether the state is on Mountain or Pacific Time. The Pacific Time Zone will air Idol live from 5-7 PT, followed by regular programming from 7-8, then an encore of Idol from 8-10, although KGUN Tucson is forgoing this to make up J! and Wheel plus two other syndies as filler.

I suppose there is the possibility that Pacific Time Zone ABC stations will want to make up a missed newscast in the free 7 PM hour, but I don't see any confirmed cases of that yet. KABC and KGO are definitely sticking with the game shows. KOMO Seattle does not have the live Idol broadcast listed on Zap2It and their website, but they do have it listed on TVPassport with Wheel's slot listed as TBA (but J!'s slot is fine).

I'm in the area affected by these storms. He was more than justified to interrupt the show. The fact that he was reluctant shows how people can get so selfish about their need to watch Wheel.

WIVB and WROC are pre-empting Wednesday's episode (#S-7588) for a Buffalo Kickoff Live Draft preview special, as they do every year.

Also, the slate for this episode has REV after the number, which means there was a revision to the episode after it was first sent out to the affiliates. If you have access to multiple airings, look out for any minor differences.

This special is airing on WTEN Albany as well. Wheel will air on WXXA (FOX) tonight.

In Columbus, Georgia, Thursday's Wheel moves to the MeTV subchannel due to the Columbus Mayoral Debate on WRBL.

www.wrbl.com/news/programming-note-jeopardy-and-wheel-of-fortune-to-air-on-erbl-on-april-28/

^ My guide actually has it listed as Friday's episode. Thanks for the heads up BTW