So long as the ratings aren't 0.0, the hundreds of thousands (at least) of people who watch the show.
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They preempted that for this?
- Thread starter Stanislav
- Start date
So long as the ratings aren't 0.0, the hundreds of thousands (at least) of people who watch the show.
The nice thing about TV ratings is that what we see are actually ratings points, which are a percent of the universe (total population in the group being analyzed). Radio, of course, uses share for publicly released data and that does not, alone, allow for a calculation of the percentage of all people reached.
LAOTC this week reached 4.6 million people in Live + Same Day, ranking second in the 10 PM hour just a tenth of a rating point behind the NCIS procedural on CBS in 18-49. But it had only half of the total viewership that NCIS New Orleans racked up as the CBS show is huge in 50+ viewing.
http://www.adweek.com/tvspy/south-carolina-meteorologist-unleashes-on-angry-viewers/195848
Now a South Carolina Weather talent for WPDE has been a target of a rant because its interrupted a prime time show.
https://www.facebook.com/EdPiotrowskiWPDE/posts/10155882411092716
Also Ed Piotrowski did a rant on why the station thought it was the right thing to air breaking news. First of all he cited evidence from the radar from Accu-weather and National Weather Service thatt was hitting parts of South Carolina.
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Is it a requirement that they HaVE to interrupt when a Tornado Warning is issued?
If the warning comes via the EAS system, stations are required to broadcast the warning.
I think the weatherman is right-TV stations are obligated to be a public service first. WYFF/4 here in Greenville/Asheville had the same problem when there was a lot of severe weather during a NASCAR race a few weeks ago, and they used a split screen to cover both. WSPA/7 was able to do long form coverage because the Chargers-Giants game ended a few minutes before the storms fired up. What stations need to do is put their weather policy on their websites, Facebook, etc more often, so that people know that it might happen.
The first two quarter and a little bit of the third quarter of the Titans preseason game at the Chiefs on WKRN-2 here in Nashville used split screen during gameplay with the game audio at 10% and 90% in studio meteorologist audio, and full weather screen and full in studio meteorologist audio during the game's commercials and halftime.
Hey, AG, have you noticed whether or not there is an increase in the amount of infomercials on TV whenever Than Merrill or other real estate "gurus" are coming into town? I have noticed that whenever he is coming here, there are more pre-emptions than usual; sometimes he is even simultaneously running the same infomercial over competing stations!
Mostly, the only other infomercials that I see are for some ant-aging skin care stuff that Cindy Crawford and a doctor whose name I can't pronounce are promoting. And they usually run those on major holidays in order to shorten the newscast and give the news anchors some time off.
Otherwise, the only infomercials that I see are the ones for Time-Life, and those usually run at out-of-the-way times, often on subchannels. I am not even certain if those are actually "pre-empting" anything.
My weather-related gripe concerns the time that I was specifically watching a newscast for weather-related information pertinent to my own area, and just when they were about to get to something relevant to me, COMCAST interrupted the coverage to announce another watch or warning in a neighboring county at least 45-50 miles from me!
Channel 4 once did something like that during Sunday night football back when Nancy Van Camp was still there. Nowadays, they could probably run a crawl across the screen of their main channel, and move the actual weather coverage to a sub-channel.
The average person might not get that subchannel. Most people wouldn't have a premium cable package, and dishes probably wouldn't have that. If they had an antenna, that might work, but people need to be prepared for that to work, maybe with a converter box. And what if the signal wasn't good enough? There's a good chance of that during severe weather.
Normal programming on the subchannel might be a better idea.
My own pre-emption-related gripe was when all three major networks interrupted coverage for O.J. Simpson's parole hearing a couple of months ago. Granted, it was daytime TV, but I still don't think O.J. warranted that much media attention. I remembered that a few days previously, they had discussed this on The Talk, and Julie Chen (married to the chairman of CBS, and a (former) newswoman in her own right) stated that she didn't think that the parole hearing was important enough to warrant interrupting normal programming. Yet, a few days later, The Talk itself fell victim to this pre-emption. Yet they never again addressed this pre-emption on future episodes.
To their credit, channel 4, the NBC affiliate here in Nashville, did not immediately go to parole hearing coverage, as they were in the middle of their noon newscast, but I believe that they were awaiting the verdict of a trial of local importance here. However, upon conclusion of the newscast, they, too, joined the parole hearing already in process.
To their credit, channel 4, the NBC affiliate here in Nashville, did not immediately go to parole hearing coverage, as they were in the middle of their noon newscast, but I believe that they were awaiting the verdict of a trial of local importance here. However, upon conclusion of the newscast, they, too, joined the parole hearing already in process.
Our local CBS affiliate once pushed their weather coverage off onto a (then) cable-only public affairs channel when a storm came through during March madness, only running crawls across the screen of the main channel. I had to watch weather coverage on other TV stations, and told them that, in an email to them. I suggested to them that they make that additional public affairs channel available as a subchannel, which they later did.
Well yesterday we had a case where the national news focused on the New York Truck attacks and the Los Angeles TV stations had to go back and forth with both the New York Truck attack and a local hostage situation in Riverside.
I haven't noticed in the Memphis area if anything like this is happening. The main time I can remember anything in prime time being pre-empted wsa when WREG in Memphis pre-empted the 7 PM CT show on Saturday nights for an infomercial for Operation Smile. But I don't watch as much TV from the Big 4 now. I'm mostly watching cable, subchannels, or streaming.
Yeah, Saturday night has become a bit of a TV wasteland in recent years. Probably just pre-empted a rerun, anyway.
I don't blame you for turning the networks off.
The only Saturday night programming on the Big 4 I might watch is if there's a college football game I'm interested in this time of the year.
I recall that channel 4, the NBC affiliate here, once pre-empted Friday night programming at 7:00 in favor of a Time-Life infomercial. I thought it odd that they would pre-empt on a Friday evening, but I don't recall what was bumped, so it must not have been "must-see-TV" after all, regardless of what NBC might tell us!
Any local stations which pre-empt programming on their subchannel netlets?
This happens any time there's severe weather and warnings in the WAND-17.1 (NBC) Decatur, IL (Champaign/Decatur/Springfield) viewing area. When that happens, including this afternoon in south central and eastern Illinois, they bump all programming from their Cozi subchannel (17.2) and go wall-to-wall weather radar and continuous loops of the local NOAA weather radio station. And occasionally their weather team cuts in when the storms threaten the immediate Decatur area and/or Champaign and Springfield.
Interestingly, 17.2 used to be their all-weather subchannel, with the same format (continuous radar and NOAA audio). Plus they had to air a half-hour of E/I programming each day. IIRC it went to at least part-time Cozi, then eventually full-time except for severe weather, about 5 or so years ago.
Other than the E/I requirements applying to subchannels, including all-weather ones (which IMO should be considered educational and informative), if WAND bumps Cozi entirely during severe weather, why they even bothered to get rid of the weather station full-time to begin with is beyond me.
This happens any time there's severe weather and warnings in the WAND-17.1 (NBC) Decatur, IL (Champaign/Decatur/Springfield) viewing area. When that happens, including this afternoon in south central and eastern Illinois, they bump all programming from their Cozi subchannel (17.2) and go wall-to-wall weather radar and continuous loops of the local NOAA weather radio station. And occasionally their weather team cuts in when the storms threaten the immediate Decatur area and/or Champaign and Springfield.
Interestingly, 17.2 used to be their all-weather subchannel, with the same format (continuous radar and NOAA audio). Plus they had to air a half-hour of E/I programming each day. IIRC it went to at least part-time Cozi, then eventually full-time except for severe weather, about 5 or so years ago.
Other than the E/I requirements applying to subchannels, including all-weather ones (which IMO should be considered educational and informative), if WAND bumps Cozi entirely during severe weather, why they even bothered to get rid of the weather station full-time to begin with is beyond me.
There was once that I saw a Time-Life infomercial for videos of The Carol Burnett show on Antenna TV in Memphis in place of an episode of Barney Miller and from what I could find out it was possibly from the main network and not local. Thankfully that hasn't happened again to my knowledge. But WBBJ 7.3 in Jackson, TN regularly pre-empts the Sunday Morning E/I shows from Me TV for infomercials. I guess they think they can get away with it since they show E/I programming from CBS on Saturdays.
But I thought subchannels ALSO had to run 3 hrs of E/I programming a week. Here in Yakima, KIMA's .1 (CBS) airs the mandated E/I shows (CBS Dream Team plus America's Heartland), .2 (CW) airs One Magnificent Morning without preemptions, and the .3 (Grit TV) also airs mandated E/I shows. Dog Whisperer: Family Edition is about the only CW show we watch.