I wonder how did stations schedule the weekend syndie shows around sports. For example NFL games, or even baseball for example.
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How did stations schedule weekend syndication around sports?
- Thread starter danderson6500
- Start date
I assume you're talking about the pre-infomercial years...
It varied from station to station. Back in the day, lots of stations had syndicated movie packages, and if there was a 90-min. or 2-hour slot to fill, the station might throw in a movie. I remember a number of CBS and NBC affiliates even preempting "CBS Sports Spectacular" and "NBC Sportsworld" to run movies or other syndicated shows. Stations would sometimes burn-off an episode of an off-net syndicated show that they normally showed on weekdays, etc. 30-minute fishing shows were also quite popular back in the day, and stations could usually schedule them around network sports. It wasn't odd for stations to produce their own weekend public affairs shows, and those could be easily preempted for sports, if necessary. At least in the midwest and south, the ShowBiz-produced country music shows were popular. These shows were all 30 minutes and consisted of "The Porter Wagoner Show," "The Wilburn Brothers Show," "Dolly," "Pop! Goes the Country," as well as few others. Stations would usually have these scheduled late Saturday or Sunday afternoons (like before or after the network evening news, sometimes preempting the network news), in the access slot on weeknights, or maybe even in weekend late-night slots. Some stations would juggle these shows around as filler on weekend afternoons. In the late '70s and early '80s, my local CBS affiliate would sometimes tape the Sunday morning CBS cartoon reruns (which they regularly preempted for paid religious shows) and use them as filler on Saturday or Sunday afternoons.
I would assume that weekend afternoons were one of the biggest headaches for network affiilate program directors back in the day.
It varied from station to station. Back in the day, lots of stations had syndicated movie packages, and if there was a 90-min. or 2-hour slot to fill, the station might throw in a movie. I remember a number of CBS and NBC affiliates even preempting "CBS Sports Spectacular" and "NBC Sportsworld" to run movies or other syndicated shows. Stations would sometimes burn-off an episode of an off-net syndicated show that they normally showed on weekdays, etc. 30-minute fishing shows were also quite popular back in the day, and stations could usually schedule them around network sports. It wasn't odd for stations to produce their own weekend public affairs shows, and those could be easily preempted for sports, if necessary. At least in the midwest and south, the ShowBiz-produced country music shows were popular. These shows were all 30 minutes and consisted of "The Porter Wagoner Show," "The Wilburn Brothers Show," "Dolly," "Pop! Goes the Country," as well as few others. Stations would usually have these scheduled late Saturday or Sunday afternoons (like before or after the network evening news, sometimes preempting the network news), in the access slot on weeknights, or maybe even in weekend late-night slots. Some stations would juggle these shows around as filler on weekend afternoons. In the late '70s and early '80s, my local CBS affiliate would sometimes tape the Sunday morning CBS cartoon reruns (which they regularly preempted for paid religious shows) and use them as filler on Saturday or Sunday afternoons.
I would assume that weekend afternoons were one of the biggest headaches for network affiilate program directors back in the day.
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ABC stations had the easiest time duirng the winter in scheudling syndication; they knew that bowling and 'Wide World' were at 3:30 and 5, so they scheduled around that. When both were moved up in 1985, the syndicated shows moved up accordingly. My ABC station would sometimes schedule sitcom reruns before 'Wide World' when bowling was out of season, but as ABC began offering more and more spring tour events, the sitcom reruns were limted to during the summer.
Baseball was the *toughest* to schedule around, like if a game went into a delay for rain, or if it was an extra inning contest. NBA games can do that too, since that could go multiple overtimes.
Even the times of a standard, uninterrupted 9-inning game can vary widely. Two teams can zip through a 2-1 game in 2:15 one day, then take two full hours longer to play a 13-9 game the next. Happens a lot more often than basketball games going 4 overtimes does. Stations really did have to have a library of material with a variety of running times to compensate for games that ended long before or after the "average" game would have ended.
I'd be interested to see how late night is handled after a baseball playoff game these days. If it's a Saturday or Sunday, do they show everything in full, and then "cheat" later on overnight? I remember one time, when ABC had a baseball playoff game(maybe it was the World Series?), WLOS/13 showed everything, with the sign off time pushed back so many minutes, depending on how long the game lasted. Because i have a memory of "American Gladiators" being on past what was the "normal" sign off time for the station(2am?). It happened another time with a college football game, and also when ABC did a Saturday night NFL game around Christmas one year. These days, it's easy to bump a infomercial if needed.
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With the NFL, if it was a singleheader, then a movie running for 90 minutes at 4:30 or when the postgame show ended was most common. If the station had a late game, then the movie would run at 2:00 before the late pregame show at 3:30. Thanks to Google News Archives, i've seen examples of filler after NFL telecasts, since on the west coast, they'd have 2 hours between the end of the 4pm est game and the 6pm news. You'd want your strongest show at 5pm, to avoid a possible overrun. I saw a few instances of American Gladiators filling the 5pm slot in some west coast markets during football season. Sometimes a 2 hour movie was in there too.
WREG CBS 3 in Memphis used to be the best station there about local programming during non-sports times on weekends. They would have movies if there were long enough blocks, and also reruns of MASH, then later Cheers, and Perry Mason. Now they're probably the worst with nothing but infomercials for hours. I checked and there no sports scheduled for tomorrow, and WREG is filling the entire time with infomercials. 
With this being the first weekend of college football you would have thought that CBS would have had at least one game.
This was probably 10 years ago, but after an NBA playoff game WPTY (Now WATN) ABC 24 in Memphis ran an infomercial that ran over and they joined a rerun of Seinfeld in progress afterward. Apparently they didn't care if they made the viewers mad that would have wanted to see Seinfeld, but they couldn't offend the company with the infomercial!
With this being the first weekend of college football you would have thought that CBS would have had at least one game. This was probably 10 years ago, but after an NBA playoff game WPTY (Now WATN) ABC 24 in Memphis ran an infomercial that ran over and they joined a rerun of Seinfeld in progress afterward. Apparently they didn't care if they made the viewers mad that would have wanted to see Seinfeld, but they couldn't offend the company with the infomercial!
WREG CBS 3 in Memphis used to be the best station there about local programming during non-sports times on weekends. They would have movies if there were long enough blocks, and also reruns of MASH, then later Cheers, and Perry Mason. Now they're probably the worst with nothing but infomercials for hours. I checked and there no sports scheduled for tomorrow, and WREG is filling the entire time with infomercials.
That does seem strange. Is CBS perhaps trying to build viewership of the largely ignored CBS Sports Network by moving games that otherwise would have been on OTA TV to cable?
CBS has OTA rights to SEC football, while ESPN has cable rights
Once NBC and CBS stopped doing the late pregames, in 85, having a movie at 2:00 on singleheader weeks was the norm. However before then, could a movie air at 1:30 then the late pregame?
I rechecked the schedules today, and Fox has two college football games today, ABC has three, and NBC has a Notre Dame game, but CBS has nothing. The only possible reason I can think of might be because they used to have US Open tennis on Labor Day weekend, but it moved to ESPN2, and they might could not get some SEC games scheduled to take the place of it. I hope that changes for next year..
And what gets me is today there were 4 CBS O&O stations that carried the ACC game of the week (syndicated) today
Boston
Miami
Baltimore
NYC
yet CBS O&O WCCO here in Minneapolis had nothing but paid programs on all afternoon
no Big 10 syndicated games anymore, what are the other CBS O&Os aring? infomercials probably
with 4 stations that couldnt show it because they were doing E/I (LA, Denver, San Fran, Sacramento) they showed paid programs (per zap2it)
Checking a couple other O&O markets it looks like CBS did the paid program route.
And then today and tomorrow afternoon NBC has the last two rounds of the PGA Dell Technologies championship.
I haven't heard, but will there be Florida-Michigan and Alabama-Florida State games next season? (unless those games are just two-year deals that expire after yesterday). IMO if Florida-Michigan was played in Gainesville rather than Ann Arbor it would have been a great SEC on CBS kickoff to the A.L. era (After Lundquist). Or for next year CBS tries to get the SEC to schedule a marquee conference game on Labor Day weekend (perhaps an interdivisional one).
Can a case be made to move up the start of the NFL season to Labor Day weekend (unless it's best to keep that as college football kickoff weekend)? Maybe at the expense of removing one preseason game. The last time the NFL started on Labor Day weekend was 1997.
As far as I know those two games on Saturday were one shot deals as they were kickoff games. Also the NFL doesn't want to open on Labor Day weekend as past ratings numbers indicate those games are much lower rated than other weekends. Also the NFL opened on LAbor Day Weekend in 1998.(Sunday was 9-6 with the Monday night game on 9-7)
college football doesn't seem to have problem with less people at home on Labor Day weekend, but the NFL doesn't want to "waste" games when people aren't home
I meant to post this earlier, but WBBJ in Jackson, TN carried their usual filler of Me TV Saturday afternoon on their CBS subchannel on 7.3. I'm irritated by the fact that they won't make Me TV a full time subchannel, but I do think that using it for filler on non-sports times on weekends on 7.3 is definitely better than the infomercials that so many stations fill the time with now. I don't know why WREG in Memphis can't do the same thing with Antenna TV, but they'd rather make money off infomercials than put something on that viewers would actually watch. Never mind that their ratings are probably close to zero at those times.
Also, I definitely think CBS blew it by not at least having at least one SEC game on Saturday. ABC and Fox both had games on both Saturday and Sunday nights, and CBS should have done something.
Also, I definitely think CBS blew it by not at least having at least one SEC game on Saturday. ABC and Fox both had games on both Saturday and Sunday nights, and CBS should have done something.
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