Season 40 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

^ WBBH and WLTV both aired Rockefeller Center at 7:00, as they do every year. Wheel was on WJXX to make up for the latter. WETM had the extra hour listed on their schedule as well. Can't speak for WKTV because I don't have a feed of it.

WVIR did not air it this year; Wheel aired at 7:00. However, WRDE in Salisbury, Maryland did air it. Wheel is not on their schedule or any of their sister stations tonight. All other 7:00 Eastern airings and 6:30 Central airings on NBC that I have access to were intact. I believe Central stations can opt to start Rockefeller Center at 6:30 if they still want to do the 6:00 news.

Looks like we can finally say good riddance to this annual special. Wheel is listed on all the O&O's tonight, and the Shop Localish website that last year's special was built around now redirects to gmadeals.com. I was told that this special was done because the ABC network needed more revenue; perhaps they made up for this with the extra Black Friday college football game.


Not all markets are out of the woods, however. #S-7680 is pre-empted on all FOX affiliates by the PAC-12 Championship Game, as that network has the game this year, with one hour of pregame starting at 7:00 PM ET. In previous years, ABC carried the game with no pregame.

WSYT Syracuse and WLUK Green Bay will both air Wheel one hour early tonight at 6:00 ET and 5:30 CT respectively, though TV Passport lists Wheel at 7:00 on WSYT-DT3. WSYT confirmed to me that the 6:00 PM airing on the main channel is correct.

KDVR Denver will air Wheel at 3:30 AM MT.

KHON Hawaii is affected by this, as the game is scheduled until 11:30 ET/6:30 HT, as with the Saturday games. The 6:00 news moves to 6:30, and Wheel moves to 7:00 HT (midnight ET). However, since KHON always runs the news for 30 minutes, any overrun will take away from Wheel and cause it to get JIP'd or skipped after the news.

#S-7680 likely did not air at all in Hawaii. The game on Friday was still not done at 11:45 ET, and FOX always follows with postgame.


#S-7472 reran this weekend, and both airings of this episode ended up being pre-empted in Nashville. Since it was originally a Tuesday episode in November, WKRN bumped the original airing overnight. The rerun airing was scheduled Sunday at 4:00 PM Central, immediately after a college basketball doubleheader on ABC. I didn't witness it, but the first tweet announcing the second game's final score was posted at 5:07 ET, so WKRN probably only showed the second half of the episode at most.

On Saturday, CBS and ABC's final college football games of the day were scheduled half an hour later than usual (to 7:30 and 11:30 PM ET). Both of these, plus FOX, still overran. CBS overran into CBS primetime, to about 8:17 ET, sliding the network lineup. This also affected 6:00 PM Mountain airings of Wheel on KKTV Colorado Springs, KGWN Cheyenne, and presumably KRQE Albquerque, which, despite airing Wheel at 6:30 PM MT, insists on running J! in its entirety if it has to start after 6:00. ABC ran until 11:45 ET. Luckily, WABC aired Wheel at 5:00 AM ET Saturday morning. FOX overran a full hour to 12:30 AM ET, so for two days in a row, Wheel did not air in Hawaii. WOHL-CD2 aired Wheel at 12:00 PM ET Saturday.

#S-7683 is pre-empted on WREX in Rockford, Illinois for a special on how to prepare for a blizzard. It will air at 1:34 AM Central.

The Army/Navy game went into double overtime and ended a little before 7:00, followed by postgame. 7:00 ET CBS airings and some 7:30 airings of Wheel did not begin until R2.

#S-7688 was at least partially pre-empted on WALA in Mobile, Alabama due to severe weather.

CBS college basketball went until 8:24 PM ET. This affected all but one Mountain airing of Wheel regardless of which half of the hour it airs.

Wheel was mostly pre-empted outright on KKTV and KGWN. On the Montana stations, Jeopardy! was pre-empted outright for a delayed local newscast at 6:00 MT, and is not in any other slot this weekend. This ran for a full 30 minutes so they likely only aired the Bonus Round of Wheel if anything.

We know how KRQE treats Wheel, by running Jeopardy! in its entirety after sports and only showing whatever's left of Wheel afterwards. It turns out KBOI in Boise now does this same thing. Both these stations aired J! from about 6:24-54 and Wheel was presumably JIP'd at the Bonus Round. It's important for me to note that I have never intentionally seen this treatment with Wheel being the show ran in full and J! the one to be JIP'd, except when WTVD did it by accident on Black Friday 2021. I have only ever seen stations keep the shows' timing as-is, air only J! in its entirety, or air both shows late in their entirety, but this isn't possible in the Mountain Time Zone if there's only one hour before primetime or the 10:00 news.

The only 6:30 MT CBS airing that was in its entirety tonight was KDBC in El Paso.

#S-7691 was unexpectedly pre-empted by a rerun of Daily Blast Live on WTSP Tampa due to technical difficulties. WTSP acknowledged the error, but will not be re-airing the episode.

All Big Three 7:30 ET airings of #S-7693 are likely going to be pre-empted. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be addressing Congress at that time.