5 years ago today, the rarest Wheel ep since 9/11 (analysis)
Nov 12, 2021 16:16:53 GMT -5
Flerbert419 and logicman27 like this
Post by MarioGS on Nov 12, 2021 16:16:53 GMT -5
Long post alert.
The episode of Wheel of Fortune that aired five years ago today is very unique in that it may be the "holy grail" of modern-era/2010's Wheel episodes. It is an episode that aired under the radar in less than half the country as a result of a hasty rescheduling decision at the show.
Election Day 2016 was a big day. At Wheel of Fortune, everything was the usual. A new week of five new episodes, aptly featuring U.S. Veterans, was taped, and the fact that at least one of these episodes wouldn't be seen in much of the country in favor of important events apparently didn't cross anyone's mind at the time of taping.
The Tuesday episode of Veterans Week, episode #S-6477, set to air November 8, 2016, featured a very excitable female veteran named Brenda Gallagher, who showed enthusiasm and charisma rarely seen on Wheel these days. Her Bonus Round win celebration, which included a victory lap around the Bonus Wheel, likely would have went viral if not for being overshadowed by other events.
Not long before this episode was set to air, Wheel finally realized that most of the country wouldn't see it due to election coverage, and decided to pull a very unorthodox rescheduling tactic. While #S-6476 was set in stone to air Monday, November 7, 2016, and did, episodes 6477 through 6480 were all delayed by one day, moving from Tuesday-Friday to Wednesday-Saturday. Some of Wheel's affiliates will do this when one episode is pre-empted, airing an episode one day later than other markets, but this was the first and only time to date in Wheel history that this happened nationally.
Since this week's Saturday rerun (AKA "Wheel of Fortune Weekend") was already sent to affiliates, episode #S-6291(RR) from Season 33, the affiliates were instructed to schedule this episode for Tuesday, November 8, 2016, if they still opted to air Wheel that day. Although the Big Three networks start election coverage at 7:00 PM Eastern, East Coast affiliates are still allowed to air local or syndicated programming at 7:00 and/or 7:30, or they can use a sister station to air those usual programs. For example, in Atlanta, Wheel normally airs on NBC affiliate WXIA, but on Election Day, WXIA carries the national NBC election coverage starting at 7:00 and airs Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! on its sister station, MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL.
None of this hasty rescheduling applied to Canada, where 6477-80 did air from Tuesday-Friday since there were no election pre-emptions there, and 6291RR aired on Saturday as originally planned. There was a lot of confusion in the Wheel fandom on Tuesday. On Twitter, some people were tweeting about a "crazy" contestant named Brenda, but they were all from people watching in Canada. Americans who managed to see Wheel that night saw an America's Game-themed episode on the generic set, rather than a veterans episode with a brighter, patriotic set. Less detail-oriented fans didn't realize it was a repeat until Cari Pittelman won $33,000 in the Bonus Round. One user on this very site admitted she thought her station had accidentally aired a future episode (as there was an America's Game week coming up in two weeks) until the minimum prize came up. Our original thread discussing the rescheduling can be viewed here.
There was also some confusion among the casual fans on the Wheel Facebook page that are fond of entering the show's Bonus Round puzzle online. On Tuesday, the site showed the puzzle for 6477, MY HAPPY PLACE, rather than 6291's PHILANTHROPY that Americans saw, if they did see Wheel that day (most FOX affiliates apparently aired Wheel as normal on Tuesday since they generally start election coverage at 8:00 Eastern). MY HAPPY PLACE remained on the site for Wednesday, November 9, when Americans finally saw it, and Thursday and Friday's bonus puzzles were also in line with their "delayed" American airings.
Thanks to Wheel's decision, America (for the most part) got to witness Brenda's lovable craziness on Wednesday, November 9, 2016. This marked the first time in Wheel history that an episode that officially aired on a Wednesday had a production number that did not end in 3 or 8, along with 4 or 9 on a Thursday, and 5 or 0 on a Friday.
More importantly, it was also history-making in that it marked the first time that a new episode, #S-6480, would nationally air as part of "Wheel of Fortune Weekend", rather than a repeat from the previous season. This also proved to be problematic. On most affiliates, Wheel of Fortune Weekend is traditionally aired on Saturday evenings in the same time slot that it airs on weeknights, if that time slot is available. Being November, most of the networks air various college football games on Saturday afternoons and/or evenings. This results in Wheel often not airing in its entirety, if at all, since football, especially college football, tends to run longer than scheduled, resulting in Wheel or programs or newscasts scheduled before it to run late and cut off Wheel for several minutes or overwrite it entirely. Other affiliates do not even schedule Wheel on weekends during college football season, or they schedule it in late time slots, opting to run local news following the games until either the network primetime lineup begins or another game. WOIO in Cleveland, for example, runs local news after the games until 8:00 PM, and airs Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! Weekend Saturday nights at 11:35 PM and 12:05 AM, respectively, but at least with the guarantee that they air in their entirety.
Another side effect of Veterans Week's rescheduling was that TV listings mostly did not reflect the change. On most TV providers and DVR listings, Tuesday's airing was still listed as a new Veterans Week episode, Season 34, Episode 42, and Saturday's airing, if the station had planned to air it, was listed as a repeat of Season 33, Episode 51, "America's Game". Because of this, many fans assumed that the week aired this way, and their station simply skipped whatever episode was meant for Tuesday, and would air a repeat on Saturday as usual.
According to 506 Sports, a website that lists detailed broadcast information for sporting events, these were the college football lineups on the Big Four networks on Saturday, November 12, 2016, the day Wheel aired its first and only new weekend episode, all times Eastern:
ABC:
12:00-3:30 PM: Penn State @ Indiana
3:30-7:00 PM: Pittsburgh @ Clemson
8:00-11:30 PM: Michigan @ Iowa
Most East Coast ABC affiliates carrying Wheel scheduled it and Jeopardy! or local news in the vacant 7-8 PM hour. Flagship station WABC in New York and some others scheduled local news at 7:00 (acting as a delayed 6:00 news) and Wheel at 7:30. Starting in 2018, ABC began running consecutively from 12-11 PM Eastern on college football Saturdays, with no break at 7:00, and the last game running from 7:30-11:00.
CBS:
12:00-3:30 PM: South Carolina @ Florida
3:30-7:00 PM: Auburn @ Georgia
NBC:
3:30-7:00 PM: Army vs. Notre Dame in San Antonio
FOX:
7:30-11:00 PM: USC @ Washington
Thanks to the Internet Archive, which archives many local newscasts around the United States, we can look back at how long some of these football broadcasts really lasted.
We'll start with CBS. According to an archive of WOIO's 7:00 PM Saturday newscast, Georgia beat Auburn 13-7 and CBS went to commercial at 7:00 exactly. At 7:03, CBS returned with a postgame show, which ran until 7:11. WOIO began its newscast at 7:14 PM. This meant that for CBS affiliates that still scheduled Wheel at 7:00 PM Eastern, it would have been joined in progress around that time, likely during the middle of Round 2. This also would have been the case for several 7:30 Eastern/6:30 Central airings that were scheduled after newscasts, as some stations will run them for a full 30 minutes and join programming in progress afterwards; others will end it at 7:30 no matter what. More on that later. Wheel airings in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones should have been fine; according to TV Tango, CBS's primetime lineup that night was repeats of NCIS and 48 Hours, so there were no more sports for the night.
Next, let's quickly check FOX, not a big carrier of Wheel anyway. Although their game started at 7:30, an archive of WTVT in Tampa Bay shows that pregame started at 7:00, which is archived at the tail end of their hour-long 6:00 newscast from that day. This means Wheel could not have aired at its regular time on any FOX affiliates, including KDVR in Denver, which only airs Wheel at 8:30 PM Mountain Time or overnight on sports days, and the former time slot was not available.
Now for the big one, ABC. The network that carries Wheel on nearly all of its O&O's and would commission the show's first primetime spin-off four years later. According to an archive of KMGH in Denver, which scheduled an hour of news from 5-6 PM Mountain Time (7-8 Eastern), the Pittsburgh/Clemson game went until 7:29 PM Eastern, with the last minute on the clock lasting seven minutes in real time, and Pittsburgh winning 43-42. The exciting win was followed by some interviews, and the game signed off at 7:34. After some commercials, KMGH finally started its newscast at 7:38. For Wheel airings on East Coast ABC affiliates, 7:00 airings were pre-empted entirely by the overrun, and some 7:30 airings would have been joined in progress likely around the start of Round 2. Other airings would have been replaced entirely with local news depending on that station's policy. It is known that WABC in New York and WLS in Chicago both ran local news until 8/7 Central and did not air any part of Wheel on Saturday. I believe this was also the case on WPVI in Philadelphia, but can't confirm that.
As for ABC's primetime game, according to an archive of WISN in Milwaukee, the clock ran out at 11:31 PM Eastern, with Iowa beating Michigan at the last second 14-13. After some interviews and a quick postgame wrap-up, WISN's scheduled 10:30 newcast began at 11:45 Eastern/10:45 Central. This likely impacted some West Coast airings of Wheel, as most West ABC's schedule Weekend Wheel following college football and/or primetime local newscasts.
NBC was the only network whose 3:30 college football game ended on time, or at least close enough. Notre Dame beat Army 44-6. An archive of WFLA in Tampa shows that their 7:00 newscast did not start until 7:02 following some commercials, suggesting that NBC signed off at the last possible second. This could mean that some 7:00 airings of Wheel were cut off at the beginning if the station kept running commercials at the top of the hour. However, KWWL in Iowa started its 6:00 (Central) newscast on time.
So to sum it up, not much of the country aired this new episode of Wheel of Fortune at sensible times, if at all. The bonus puzzle page on the show's website also never posted 6480's bonus puzzle, GROCERY BAGS, likely because nobody was working that day to update it. The show's social media pages also did not post any clips of this episode, mainly since the Bonus Round was not won.
The only airings that were fully intact were:
- Some 7:30 Eastern CBS airings
- Likely all West Coast CBS airings
- Most NBC airings, except possibly some 7:00 airings that may have been JIP'd at 7:02 (and WCBD which pre-empts WOF Weekend with news anyway)
These airings would have been partial:
- All 7:00 Eastern CBS airings, JIP'd around 7:14
- Some 7:30 Eastern CBS airings following local news, JIP'd around 7:44
- Possibly some 7:00 Eastern NBC airings JIP'd around 7:02
- Some 7:30 Eastern ABC airings, JIP'd around 7:38
- Possibly some West Coast ABC airings JIP'd around 9:45 PM Mountain/8:45 Pacific, or later following news or postgame programming
And airings that were completely wiped:
- All 7:00 Eastern ABC airings
- Some 7:30 Eastern ABC airings, scheduled to follow local news at 7:00/6:00 Central
FOX airings at least would have been moved in advance since it was the only network where the time slot was pre-empted outright.
As shown by newscast archives, comments on this site, and my knowledge of Wheel affiliates, it is known that at least the following stations aired this episode in its entirety:
WOIO in Cleveland aired it at 11:35 PM Eastern following local news. The $1,000 Toss-Up appears in the last minute of the archived newscast.
KWWL in Iowa aired it at its regular time of 6:30 PM Central. Their archived 6:00 newscast also has the first few seconds of the episode preserved.
KTVT in Dallas, a CBS O&O, also aired the full episode. It was mostly saved on DVR by contestant Edward Williams, but since KTVT usually starts Wheel a couple minutes early, his copy does not start until the middle of his interview. Also notice that his DVR's GUI titles the episode "America's Game", the theme of the week's Season 33 rerun that was moved to Tuesday. Thankfully, the two archived newscasts above give us the missing bit of gameplay; I couldn't find any other archives of it by searching key words from the closed captioning.
KHOU in Houston also does not run its 6:00 news past 6:30 following sports overruns, so Wheel likely aired there as well.
According to finalspin , WVUE in New Orleans, a FOX affiliate, scheduled this episode for 4:30 PM Central Saturday afternoon.
Our recapper at the time, tlc38tlc38 , lived in Atlanta and watched Wheel on WXIA. Saturday airings of Wheel air on WATL, including this episode. Offscreen pictures of the episode's Crossword puzzle are used in the recap thread, so we know WATL aired it with no problem. Thanks to him, we managed to get a full recap of the episode the night it aired, without having to rely on illegal feeds of other stations or YouTube uploads, the latter of which never came about.
This also should have been the case in Baltimore, where WOF Weekend airs on CW affiliate WNUV on Sunday nights, so there shouldn't have been any problems showing this episode. The Syracuse market also airs WOF Weekend on a MyNetworkTV affiliate like Atlanta.
Inversely, a few markets don't carry WOF Weekend at all, such as WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts, and others air it in late night time slots during college football season, such as WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, which airs it at 12:30 or 1:00 AM on Monday mornings.
According to scottman82wheelfan , KABC in Los Angeles scheduled this episode for 3:07 AM Pacific Saturday night/Sunday morning.
According to genius2751 , KGO in San Francisco aired it at 10:00 PM Pacific on Saturday night.
tenpoundhammer watches on WNEM in Flint, Michigan (CBS) and apparently did not see this episode. I don't believe WNEM even carries WOF Weekend during college football season.
WayoshiM managed to scrape up a barebones recap that he posted at 10:11 PM Eastern Saturday night before TLC's recap went up. At the time, he was living in Boston and would have watched on WBZ, which would not have aired the episode in its entirety since it's a 7:00 CBS airing. Wayoshi, did you find a feed of another station to catch the full episode that night?
Luckily, the college football mess didn't appear to affect the contestants locally. We know Edward got it where he lives on KTVT. Dan Pugsley should have got it on WTLV in Jacksonville, though they may have JIP'd it a minute or two in. Alex Thompson hopefully got it on WDIV Detroit, assuming that's the affiliate for Imlay, Michigan, although they do sometimes pre-empt WOF Weekend with infomercials.
As for Jeopardy!, they too aired a week in a Mon-Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat format the week of Election Day 2004, during Ken Jennings' run. I am not sure how prevalent college football was on the Big Four networks back in 2004, but surely not as much as it is now, so I imagine the majority of the country saw Ken's 68th game on Saturday, November 6, 2004. For 2016, they did not do what they did in 2004 or what Wheel did that year; they just stuck with a new episode on Tuesday, November 8 and kept its rerun for Saturday. However, WABC opted to skip the Monday, November 7 episode (#7396) and air the November 8 episode (#7397) one day early, due to contestant Allon Scheyer being local (he did not win). WABC did not air any episode of Wheel or Jeopardy! at all on Tuesday the 8th, and did not air Wheel's Saturday episode due to college football overrun. They likely aired Jeopardy!'s Saturday rerun early Saturday or Sunday morning, or on Sunday afternoon.
In conclusion...
By my calculations of the various market sizes, I estimate that about 64% of the United States did not air episode #S-6480 of Wheel of Fortune in its entirety and/or at sensible time slots. In this count, I did not count markets that air WOF Weekend on MyTV or CW affiliates, or 7:00 PM Eastern airings on NBC affiliates that may have have started at 7:01 or 02. Regardless, this was surely the least-seen episode of Wheel since the week of 9/11.
No Wheel archivists are known to have a copy of this episode, aside from Edward's recording and the $1,000 Toss-Up clips on archive.org. All the archivists I know who were regularly recording Wheel at the time did not get 6480, either because their station didn't air it, or because they were not aware that a new episode was airing on a Saturday. There were also no YouTube bot uploads of this episode or torrents, but there were for the other episodes this week.
Does anyone else here remember getting to see this rare episode five years ago? I was actually on one of the Carnival cruises I won on that day, and I completely forgot about it, despite me posting multiple heads-ups that Saturday would be a new episode and not a rerun. However, the cruise's TV service gave us the Miami affiliates, where Wheel airs on WPLG (ABC) at 7:00 Eastern, so it would not have aired at all on there.
Hopefully a full, direct-quality copy of this episode will surface someday, or perhaps appear in streaming or GSN reruns. One can only hope.
The episode of Wheel of Fortune that aired five years ago today is very unique in that it may be the "holy grail" of modern-era/2010's Wheel episodes. It is an episode that aired under the radar in less than half the country as a result of a hasty rescheduling decision at the show.
Election Day 2016 was a big day. At Wheel of Fortune, everything was the usual. A new week of five new episodes, aptly featuring U.S. Veterans, was taped, and the fact that at least one of these episodes wouldn't be seen in much of the country in favor of important events apparently didn't cross anyone's mind at the time of taping.
The Tuesday episode of Veterans Week, episode #S-6477, set to air November 8, 2016, featured a very excitable female veteran named Brenda Gallagher, who showed enthusiasm and charisma rarely seen on Wheel these days. Her Bonus Round win celebration, which included a victory lap around the Bonus Wheel, likely would have went viral if not for being overshadowed by other events.
Not long before this episode was set to air, Wheel finally realized that most of the country wouldn't see it due to election coverage, and decided to pull a very unorthodox rescheduling tactic. While #S-6476 was set in stone to air Monday, November 7, 2016, and did, episodes 6477 through 6480 were all delayed by one day, moving from Tuesday-Friday to Wednesday-Saturday. Some of Wheel's affiliates will do this when one episode is pre-empted, airing an episode one day later than other markets, but this was the first and only time to date in Wheel history that this happened nationally.
Since this week's Saturday rerun (AKA "Wheel of Fortune Weekend") was already sent to affiliates, episode #S-6291(RR) from Season 33, the affiliates were instructed to schedule this episode for Tuesday, November 8, 2016, if they still opted to air Wheel that day. Although the Big Three networks start election coverage at 7:00 PM Eastern, East Coast affiliates are still allowed to air local or syndicated programming at 7:00 and/or 7:30, or they can use a sister station to air those usual programs. For example, in Atlanta, Wheel normally airs on NBC affiliate WXIA, but on Election Day, WXIA carries the national NBC election coverage starting at 7:00 and airs Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! on its sister station, MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL.
None of this hasty rescheduling applied to Canada, where 6477-80 did air from Tuesday-Friday since there were no election pre-emptions there, and 6291RR aired on Saturday as originally planned. There was a lot of confusion in the Wheel fandom on Tuesday. On Twitter, some people were tweeting about a "crazy" contestant named Brenda, but they were all from people watching in Canada. Americans who managed to see Wheel that night saw an America's Game-themed episode on the generic set, rather than a veterans episode with a brighter, patriotic set. Less detail-oriented fans didn't realize it was a repeat until Cari Pittelman won $33,000 in the Bonus Round. One user on this very site admitted she thought her station had accidentally aired a future episode (as there was an America's Game week coming up in two weeks) until the minimum prize came up. Our original thread discussing the rescheduling can be viewed here.
There was also some confusion among the casual fans on the Wheel Facebook page that are fond of entering the show's Bonus Round puzzle online. On Tuesday, the site showed the puzzle for 6477, MY HAPPY PLACE, rather than 6291's PHILANTHROPY that Americans saw, if they did see Wheel that day (most FOX affiliates apparently aired Wheel as normal on Tuesday since they generally start election coverage at 8:00 Eastern). MY HAPPY PLACE remained on the site for Wednesday, November 9, when Americans finally saw it, and Thursday and Friday's bonus puzzles were also in line with their "delayed" American airings.
Thanks to Wheel's decision, America (for the most part) got to witness Brenda's lovable craziness on Wednesday, November 9, 2016. This marked the first time in Wheel history that an episode that officially aired on a Wednesday had a production number that did not end in 3 or 8, along with 4 or 9 on a Thursday, and 5 or 0 on a Friday.
More importantly, it was also history-making in that it marked the first time that a new episode, #S-6480, would nationally air as part of "Wheel of Fortune Weekend", rather than a repeat from the previous season. This also proved to be problematic. On most affiliates, Wheel of Fortune Weekend is traditionally aired on Saturday evenings in the same time slot that it airs on weeknights, if that time slot is available. Being November, most of the networks air various college football games on Saturday afternoons and/or evenings. This results in Wheel often not airing in its entirety, if at all, since football, especially college football, tends to run longer than scheduled, resulting in Wheel or programs or newscasts scheduled before it to run late and cut off Wheel for several minutes or overwrite it entirely. Other affiliates do not even schedule Wheel on weekends during college football season, or they schedule it in late time slots, opting to run local news following the games until either the network primetime lineup begins or another game. WOIO in Cleveland, for example, runs local news after the games until 8:00 PM, and airs Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! Weekend Saturday nights at 11:35 PM and 12:05 AM, respectively, but at least with the guarantee that they air in their entirety.
Another side effect of Veterans Week's rescheduling was that TV listings mostly did not reflect the change. On most TV providers and DVR listings, Tuesday's airing was still listed as a new Veterans Week episode, Season 34, Episode 42, and Saturday's airing, if the station had planned to air it, was listed as a repeat of Season 33, Episode 51, "America's Game". Because of this, many fans assumed that the week aired this way, and their station simply skipped whatever episode was meant for Tuesday, and would air a repeat on Saturday as usual.
According to 506 Sports, a website that lists detailed broadcast information for sporting events, these were the college football lineups on the Big Four networks on Saturday, November 12, 2016, the day Wheel aired its first and only new weekend episode, all times Eastern:
ABC:
12:00-3:30 PM: Penn State @ Indiana
3:30-7:00 PM: Pittsburgh @ Clemson
8:00-11:30 PM: Michigan @ Iowa
Most East Coast ABC affiliates carrying Wheel scheduled it and Jeopardy! or local news in the vacant 7-8 PM hour. Flagship station WABC in New York and some others scheduled local news at 7:00 (acting as a delayed 6:00 news) and Wheel at 7:30. Starting in 2018, ABC began running consecutively from 12-11 PM Eastern on college football Saturdays, with no break at 7:00, and the last game running from 7:30-11:00.
CBS:
12:00-3:30 PM: South Carolina @ Florida
3:30-7:00 PM: Auburn @ Georgia
NBC:
3:30-7:00 PM: Army vs. Notre Dame in San Antonio
FOX:
7:30-11:00 PM: USC @ Washington
Thanks to the Internet Archive, which archives many local newscasts around the United States, we can look back at how long some of these football broadcasts really lasted.
We'll start with CBS. According to an archive of WOIO's 7:00 PM Saturday newscast, Georgia beat Auburn 13-7 and CBS went to commercial at 7:00 exactly. At 7:03, CBS returned with a postgame show, which ran until 7:11. WOIO began its newscast at 7:14 PM. This meant that for CBS affiliates that still scheduled Wheel at 7:00 PM Eastern, it would have been joined in progress around that time, likely during the middle of Round 2. This also would have been the case for several 7:30 Eastern/6:30 Central airings that were scheduled after newscasts, as some stations will run them for a full 30 minutes and join programming in progress afterwards; others will end it at 7:30 no matter what. More on that later. Wheel airings in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones should have been fine; according to TV Tango, CBS's primetime lineup that night was repeats of NCIS and 48 Hours, so there were no more sports for the night.
Next, let's quickly check FOX, not a big carrier of Wheel anyway. Although their game started at 7:30, an archive of WTVT in Tampa Bay shows that pregame started at 7:00, which is archived at the tail end of their hour-long 6:00 newscast from that day. This means Wheel could not have aired at its regular time on any FOX affiliates, including KDVR in Denver, which only airs Wheel at 8:30 PM Mountain Time or overnight on sports days, and the former time slot was not available.
Now for the big one, ABC. The network that carries Wheel on nearly all of its O&O's and would commission the show's first primetime spin-off four years later. According to an archive of KMGH in Denver, which scheduled an hour of news from 5-6 PM Mountain Time (7-8 Eastern), the Pittsburgh/Clemson game went until 7:29 PM Eastern, with the last minute on the clock lasting seven minutes in real time, and Pittsburgh winning 43-42. The exciting win was followed by some interviews, and the game signed off at 7:34. After some commercials, KMGH finally started its newscast at 7:38. For Wheel airings on East Coast ABC affiliates, 7:00 airings were pre-empted entirely by the overrun, and some 7:30 airings would have been joined in progress likely around the start of Round 2. Other airings would have been replaced entirely with local news depending on that station's policy. It is known that WABC in New York and WLS in Chicago both ran local news until 8/7 Central and did not air any part of Wheel on Saturday. I believe this was also the case on WPVI in Philadelphia, but can't confirm that.
As for ABC's primetime game, according to an archive of WISN in Milwaukee, the clock ran out at 11:31 PM Eastern, with Iowa beating Michigan at the last second 14-13. After some interviews and a quick postgame wrap-up, WISN's scheduled 10:30 newcast began at 11:45 Eastern/10:45 Central. This likely impacted some West Coast airings of Wheel, as most West ABC's schedule Weekend Wheel following college football and/or primetime local newscasts.
NBC was the only network whose 3:30 college football game ended on time, or at least close enough. Notre Dame beat Army 44-6. An archive of WFLA in Tampa shows that their 7:00 newscast did not start until 7:02 following some commercials, suggesting that NBC signed off at the last possible second. This could mean that some 7:00 airings of Wheel were cut off at the beginning if the station kept running commercials at the top of the hour. However, KWWL in Iowa started its 6:00 (Central) newscast on time.
So to sum it up, not much of the country aired this new episode of Wheel of Fortune at sensible times, if at all. The bonus puzzle page on the show's website also never posted 6480's bonus puzzle, GROCERY BAGS, likely because nobody was working that day to update it. The show's social media pages also did not post any clips of this episode, mainly since the Bonus Round was not won.
The only airings that were fully intact were:
- Some 7:30 Eastern CBS airings
- Likely all West Coast CBS airings
- Most NBC airings, except possibly some 7:00 airings that may have been JIP'd at 7:02 (and WCBD which pre-empts WOF Weekend with news anyway)
These airings would have been partial:
- All 7:00 Eastern CBS airings, JIP'd around 7:14
- Some 7:30 Eastern CBS airings following local news, JIP'd around 7:44
- Possibly some 7:00 Eastern NBC airings JIP'd around 7:02
- Some 7:30 Eastern ABC airings, JIP'd around 7:38
- Possibly some West Coast ABC airings JIP'd around 9:45 PM Mountain/8:45 Pacific, or later following news or postgame programming
And airings that were completely wiped:
- All 7:00 Eastern ABC airings
- Some 7:30 Eastern ABC airings, scheduled to follow local news at 7:00/6:00 Central
FOX airings at least would have been moved in advance since it was the only network where the time slot was pre-empted outright.
As shown by newscast archives, comments on this site, and my knowledge of Wheel affiliates, it is known that at least the following stations aired this episode in its entirety:
WOIO in Cleveland aired it at 11:35 PM Eastern following local news. The $1,000 Toss-Up appears in the last minute of the archived newscast.
KWWL in Iowa aired it at its regular time of 6:30 PM Central. Their archived 6:00 newscast also has the first few seconds of the episode preserved.
KTVT in Dallas, a CBS O&O, also aired the full episode. It was mostly saved on DVR by contestant Edward Williams, but since KTVT usually starts Wheel a couple minutes early, his copy does not start until the middle of his interview. Also notice that his DVR's GUI titles the episode "America's Game", the theme of the week's Season 33 rerun that was moved to Tuesday. Thankfully, the two archived newscasts above give us the missing bit of gameplay; I couldn't find any other archives of it by searching key words from the closed captioning.
KHOU in Houston also does not run its 6:00 news past 6:30 following sports overruns, so Wheel likely aired there as well.
According to finalspin , WVUE in New Orleans, a FOX affiliate, scheduled this episode for 4:30 PM Central Saturday afternoon.
Our recapper at the time, tlc38tlc38 , lived in Atlanta and watched Wheel on WXIA. Saturday airings of Wheel air on WATL, including this episode. Offscreen pictures of the episode's Crossword puzzle are used in the recap thread, so we know WATL aired it with no problem. Thanks to him, we managed to get a full recap of the episode the night it aired, without having to rely on illegal feeds of other stations or YouTube uploads, the latter of which never came about.
This also should have been the case in Baltimore, where WOF Weekend airs on CW affiliate WNUV on Sunday nights, so there shouldn't have been any problems showing this episode. The Syracuse market also airs WOF Weekend on a MyNetworkTV affiliate like Atlanta.
Inversely, a few markets don't carry WOF Weekend at all, such as WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts, and others air it in late night time slots during college football season, such as WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, which airs it at 12:30 or 1:00 AM on Monday mornings.
According to scottman82wheelfan , KABC in Los Angeles scheduled this episode for 3:07 AM Pacific Saturday night/Sunday morning.
According to genius2751 , KGO in San Francisco aired it at 10:00 PM Pacific on Saturday night.
tenpoundhammer watches on WNEM in Flint, Michigan (CBS) and apparently did not see this episode. I don't believe WNEM even carries WOF Weekend during college football season.
WayoshiM managed to scrape up a barebones recap that he posted at 10:11 PM Eastern Saturday night before TLC's recap went up. At the time, he was living in Boston and would have watched on WBZ, which would not have aired the episode in its entirety since it's a 7:00 CBS airing. Wayoshi, did you find a feed of another station to catch the full episode that night?
Luckily, the college football mess didn't appear to affect the contestants locally. We know Edward got it where he lives on KTVT. Dan Pugsley should have got it on WTLV in Jacksonville, though they may have JIP'd it a minute or two in. Alex Thompson hopefully got it on WDIV Detroit, assuming that's the affiliate for Imlay, Michigan, although they do sometimes pre-empt WOF Weekend with infomercials.
As for Jeopardy!, they too aired a week in a Mon-Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat format the week of Election Day 2004, during Ken Jennings' run. I am not sure how prevalent college football was on the Big Four networks back in 2004, but surely not as much as it is now, so I imagine the majority of the country saw Ken's 68th game on Saturday, November 6, 2004. For 2016, they did not do what they did in 2004 or what Wheel did that year; they just stuck with a new episode on Tuesday, November 8 and kept its rerun for Saturday. However, WABC opted to skip the Monday, November 7 episode (#7396) and air the November 8 episode (#7397) one day early, due to contestant Allon Scheyer being local (he did not win). WABC did not air any episode of Wheel or Jeopardy! at all on Tuesday the 8th, and did not air Wheel's Saturday episode due to college football overrun. They likely aired Jeopardy!'s Saturday rerun early Saturday or Sunday morning, or on Sunday afternoon.
In conclusion...
By my calculations of the various market sizes, I estimate that about 64% of the United States did not air episode #S-6480 of Wheel of Fortune in its entirety and/or at sensible time slots. In this count, I did not count markets that air WOF Weekend on MyTV or CW affiliates, or 7:00 PM Eastern airings on NBC affiliates that may have have started at 7:01 or 02. Regardless, this was surely the least-seen episode of Wheel since the week of 9/11.
No Wheel archivists are known to have a copy of this episode, aside from Edward's recording and the $1,000 Toss-Up clips on archive.org. All the archivists I know who were regularly recording Wheel at the time did not get 6480, either because their station didn't air it, or because they were not aware that a new episode was airing on a Saturday. There were also no YouTube bot uploads of this episode or torrents, but there were for the other episodes this week.
Does anyone else here remember getting to see this rare episode five years ago? I was actually on one of the Carnival cruises I won on that day, and I completely forgot about it, despite me posting multiple heads-ups that Saturday would be a new episode and not a rerun. However, the cruise's TV service gave us the Miami affiliates, where Wheel airs on WPLG (ABC) at 7:00 Eastern, so it would not have aired at all on there.
Hopefully a full, direct-quality copy of this episode will surface someday, or perhaps appear in streaming or GSN reruns. One can only hope.
