Season 41 Pre-emptions

Yet another sports deal that will affect Wheel...

WTHR Indianapolis (NBC) and its sister station WALV (MeTV) have partnered with WNBA team the Indiana Fever to air 17 of their games this season. www.wthr.com/article/sports/wnba/indiana-fever/fever-home-opener-live-wthr-thursday-law-order-special-victims-unit-svu-organized-crime-finales-time-date/531-2ced8c77-8c5c-43cc-93ba-561082811ef4


Wheel will be pre-empted on the following days with games on WTHR. As with all pre-emptions, Wheel will air on WALV:

Thursday, May 16 (#S-7994)
Thursday, May 30 (#S-8004)
Monday, June 10 (rerun TBA)
Thursday, June 13 (rerun TBA)
Thursday, September 19 (Season 42)

It will also likely be pre-empted on Monday, August 26 by a game that starts at 7:30. WTHR always replaces Wheel with J! when 7:30 is pre-empted but 7:00 is not, even if J! is in reruns; they have claimed that CBS Media Ventures forces them to do this per their contract. When this happens, WTHR either airs Wheel at 7:30 on WALV, or overnight. Or they may just churn out pregame or a local special to put at 7:00 and bump both to WALV like they (and other NBC affiliates with Wheel at 7:00 ET) do during the Olympics. There are no games that start at 8:00 ET, so no worry about pregame at 7:30.

Per Reddit, #S-7997 was cut off during the Bonus Round timer for a brief severe weather update on KYTV in Springfield, MO (NBC).

#S-8005 was almost entirely pre-empted on WCNC Charlotte due to a press conference from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department with updates on the investigation of a police shootout that killed four officers back on April 29. Coverage ran from 7:31-7:56. Shortly after it started, a notice appeared at the bottom of the screen stating that Wheel would re-air in its entirety at 3:00 AM ET.

Not sure how late NBA Finals ran, but one KABC viewer reported that they did not air #S-8009 even though it was scheduled and announced to air at 9:00 PM PT.

#S-7915 is rerunning Friday, for any CBS viewers who missed the original airing.

However, this airing of it may be pre-empted on some East Coast NBC affiliates due to the US Open, which is scheduled from 1-7 ET. Although Wheel isn't affected outright, some stations may opt to pre-empt Wheel with delayed local newscasts or a delayed feed of NBC Nightly News. WCNC Charlotte is doing this; they're doing the "6:00" news at 7:00 and moving J! to 7:30 in place of Wheel, with no Wheel scheduled at all.

On Saturday 6/15, the US Open runs from 12-8 ET, affecting all East Coast airings.

Other NBC stations that pre-empted Wheel for the 7:30 ET feed of NBC Nightly News, all of which are in the Central Time Zone and pair Wheel with local news. No Eastern Time Zone airings were affected except for WCNC.

WJHG Panama City, FL
WAND Springfield, IL
WFIE Evansville, IN
KSNW Wichita, KS
KXAN Austin, TX
KCEN Temple, TX
KTAL Shreveport, LA




I'm thinking KTAL accidentally programmed the delayed airing of NBCNN for the wrong Friday, and nobody realized it.

#S-7944RR is pre-empted on all FOX affiliates due to MLB, preceded by 90 minutes of pregame starting at 5:30 PM ET. WSYT announced Wheel will move to My43, and KDVR announced it will move to KWGN. WLUK will air it after the 10:00 newscast and J!, no earlier than 11:07 PM CT.

#S-7904RR is pre-empted on all FOX stations and all of the Pacific Time Zone and Arizona due to the Presidential Debate. No contestants are affected since all of them are from East Coast non-FOX markets.

FOX has the Copa América soccer tournament from 5:00-8:30 PM ET.

Debate coverage times are as follows, in Eastern Time:
ABC: 8:00-11:00 PM (plus additional hour of post-debate coverage at 8:00 PT for the West Coast O&O's)
CBS: 9:00-11:00 PM
FOX: 8:30-10:37 PM
NBC: 9:00-11:00 PM

NBC's coverage is preceded by one hour of US Olympic Trials on the East Coast. In the Mountain Time Zone, this will air after the debate from 9-10 MT. 6:30 MT airings of Wheel on NBC and CBS are not affected. In the Pacific Time Zone and Arizona, NBC is airing three hours of Olympic Trials from 8-11 PT, and this does not appear to be optional. Wheel is not on the schedule on any of the Pacific NBC's or KYMA in Yuma.

ABC is optionally offering at least one rerun of Shark Tank for the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones for after the debate. KGUN in Tucson is opting for this and is not airing Wheel at all. KABC and KGO both have Wheel at 9:00 PT following the O&O-exclusive post-debate coverage. Most other ABC's and all three CBS's have Wheel in primetime slots.

KTVK in Phoenix is also airing the debate, with Wheel moving early to 5:00 PM PT. KJZZ in Salt Lake City, the only other independent station with Wheel, is not airing the debate. 

Because of the debate, Round 1 of the NBA Draft was moved a day early to Wednesday 6/26, pre-empting #S-7903RR on West Coast ABC's. This resulted in both airings of that episode being pre-empted on these stations.

^ Only NBC and apparently FOX covered the speech, and both were optional. Most 7:30 ET airings of Wheel on NBC affiliates were not interrupted (IDK about FOX).

The following NBC airings of Wheel were pre-empted by the speech and subsequent discussion which lasted until 8:00:

KBJR Superior, WI
KCBD Lubbock, TX
KCEN Temple, TX
KOMU Columbia, MO
KYTV Springfield, MO
KSNW Wichita, KS
KWWL Waterloo, IA
WFIE Evansville, IN
WJHG Panama City, FL
WPSD Paducah, KY
WPTZ Burlington, VT (only impacted airing in the Eastern Time Zone)


EDIT: Someone on Twitter reported that WXIA Atlanta also aired the speech, pre-empting half of J!