Season 40 Pre-emptions and Anomalies

#S-7591RR was pre-empted on KWWL in Iowa by an infomercial, on WBNS Columbus by the 6:00 news and J! sliding after PGA (which ended on time), and on all mainland FOX affiliates by college basketball and a sports documentary that aired between games at 7 ET. KDVR Denver, as usual, moved Wheel to 8:30 MT half an hour after the last game, which ran until about 8:24.

WVUE New Orleans did not carry the final game on its main station due to Mardi Gras. After the sports documentary, Jeopardy! and Wheel aired in primetime at 7:00 and 7:30 CT, followed by three hours of live Mardi Gras coverage.

WOIO Cleveland accidentally repeated #S-7742 instead of airing 7744.

Most 7:00 ET airings of #S-7744 were partially interrupted for special reports on the verdict of the Alex Murdaugh murder trial. Special report times were as follows:

NBC: 7:03-7:17
CBS: 7:05-7:14
ABC: 7:06-7:13
FOX: None

At least CBS's coverage was optional. Wheel was not interrupted on WIVB Buffalo.

ABC's probably wasn't optional since both WABC and WPVI interrupted J! for it (though since it was during the break before the interviews, only about 15 clues in the first round were lost). Naturally, every time a special report happens in either half hour, Twitter freaks out, swearing that this never happens to Wheel.

To make up for this error, WOIO will air 7744 late Friday night at 1:37 AM ET after Corden. 7745 will still air at the normal 7:00.

www.cleveland19.com/2023/03/03/programming-note-wheel-fortune-air-march-3-later-time/ 

I don't believe the unintentional repeat of 7742 was interrupted for the Murdaugh verdict, by the way.

March Madness pre-emptions on CBS affiliates start tonight. Remember that the games are scheduled until midnight ET and any overnight programs will slide if the final game runs later than that.

The only affiliates that have posted official announcements of Wheel times are WIVB Buffalo (moving to WNLO as usual), WWMT Grand Rapids (2:37 AM ET), and KRQE Albuquerque (1:42 AM MT).

For those who use Paramount+ with a VPN to stream Wheel off any CBS affiliate, your best bet is to wait until 1:30 AM ET/10:30 PM PT and watch on KLAS Las Vegas or KBAK Bakersfield (I recommend the latter because they don't use a bug and they don't have the "black line"). Both of these stations have Wheel at that time and do not slide their post-game programming (KLAS does news until 10 PT and KBAK airs two eps of Family Feud at 9:00 and 9:30 followed by J! and Wheel). KVAL Eugene, the third Pacific CBS, has Wheel scheduled at 10:00 PM PT following local news and J!, but those programs do slide, so if the final game runs past 12:30 ET/9:30 PT, Wheel will not air in its entirety on KVAL. Otherwise, it will air at 10:00 plus however many minutes the 9:00 newscast started late.


There are no early airings this year. Up until last year, WRDW Augusta would air Wheel at 10:00 AM ET during the first week. This year, Dr. Phil is now at 10:00 and Wheel is on WRDW-DT3 at 7:00 PM, as they do during the second week and most other pre-emptions.

KHOU Houston will air at 2:37 am eastern Today and 3:07 am Eastern Friday.

March Madness ended on time last night.


More official announcements:

WPRI Providence: Wheel will air on WPRI-DT2 on the weekdays, as expected.

WSEE Erie: #S-7754 and 7755 will air early Saturday morning at 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM ET.

KRTV Great Falls: #S-7754 will air Saturday at 8:30 PM MT, still listed as 7601RR. This is scheduled half an hour after Saturday's final game. 7755 and 7601RR don't appear to be airing at all. This will probably also be the case for the other Montana CBS stations.


Also, WCCO Minneapolis will air #S-7601RR Saturday morning at 10:30 AM Central leading into the first game of the day. The weekday episodes are airing around 2:07 AM.

March Madness pre-emptions resume today. KHOU Houston does not have Wheel listed on some listings, but times are the same as last week.

Friday (#S-7760) is the final weekday pre-emption for the East Coast and the last overall for the month of March. Wheel is not affected this Saturday (only one game on CBS from 3-5 ET) or any time next week. Wheel will be pre-empted on CBS nationwide on Saturday 4/1 (#S-7466RR) and on most Mountain and Pacific CBS's on Monday 4/3 (#S-7766), except on KKTV and KGWN which air Wheel at 6:00 MT just before the championship pregame and will still do so that day. On the affected weekdays this and last week, KGWN has been airing Wheel at 12:37 AM MT and KKTV at 1:07 AM.