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They preempted that for this?

All I'm saying is, Jeopardy! viewers have it way easier than Wheel viewers. Wheel is very likely the most pre-empted syndicated program on TV because of its prime access mandate and "self-containedness" of each episode, therefore being "unimportant". Entertainment Tonight is probably a close second.

ET is also stale by the time its delayed wee-hours airing takes place. Most of its viewers who have internet access probably have seen all they need to see about that day's hot celebrity rumor/breakup/pregnancy/faux pas and more via TMZ and similar websites.

You bring up an interesting point about Wheel vs. Jeopardy. I wonder why Wheel never embraced the concept of returning champions. It wouldn't work now because the show is on the road so much, but back in its one-studio days, you'd think that format would have been tried. But then, how many cars and vacations does one puzzle-solving genius need?
 
ET is also stale by the time its delayed wee-hours airing takes place. Most of its viewers who have internet access probably have seen all they need to see about that day's hot celebrity rumor/breakup/pregnancy/faux pas and more via TMZ and similar websites.
Ditto for Access Hollywood. It airs a day late here in Nashville, and by then, I am usually sick to death of all the stories that they run, having already seen them on Inside Edition and the like.
 
Wheel and Jeopardy! will also be pre-empted tonight on WANE in Fort Wayne, IN (CBS) by a local special titled "Veterans Voices: Honor Those Who Serve". The two shows will air in the post-Corden hour - 1:37 and 2:07 AM in place of ES.TV and Recipe.TV.
It's pretty hard to argue with that. Anyway, if someone is willing to wait they rebroadcast the tournaments in the summer. I think just the final week.

The storms a couple of weeks ago were not out of the area, as the crawls on the Greensboro station led me to believe. I just watched my recording of "Superstore" and I saw the rest of the episode online once I found out. Even though the locations affected by the warnings are so far away from Charlotte that a translator is necessary to reach them. all of us had to wait until 17 minutes after the hour to see what was left. And I can say I didn't miss much. I can't stand that show about half the time but I do like America Ferrera. I'm not sure but I think the area is in the Florence market for ABC and CBS. Not sure what the Fox station is for them. I didn't record any other shows so I don't know what other stations did.
 
ET is also stale by the time its delayed wee-hours airing takes place. Most of its viewers who have internet access probably have seen all they need to see about that day's hot celebrity rumor/breakup/pregnancy/faux pas and more via TMZ and similar websites.

You bring up an interesting point about Wheel vs. Jeopardy. I wonder why Wheel never embraced the concept of returning champions. It wouldn't work now because the show is on the road so much, but back in its one-studio days, you'd think that format would have been tried. But then, how many cars and vacations does one puzzle-solving genius need?


ET on TV is also becoming obsolete because most if not all stories are uploaded to ET's YouTube channel. Wheel only uploads brief highlights or montages, although there is a bot going around that records every episode from a feed of WPLG Miami and posts them on YouTube under several accounts, though they often get removed within a week.


Wheel did have returning champions for several years. The entire NBC>CBS>NBC daytime run had them, and the syndicated version added them in 1989. In 1996, they changed it to a "Friday Finals" format, where the top three scorers from Mon-Thu played again on Friday with bigger stakes. Then in 1998, that was gone and it was back to "one and done", save for one single "Friday Finals" week in 1999, and a few scattered instances of contestants being brought back due to errors.

Wheel actually does not tape on location anymore. Starting with the 2015-16 season, the entire seasons are now filmed at Sony Studios, except for three weeks in the 2017-18 season that were filmed at EPCOT in Disney World (which was mostly paid for by Disney). They do have several weeks where Pat and Vanna will film footage in various cities and the sets will be themed as such, to make unknowing viewers think they're in said city, but those are merely "salutes" to the cities.

However, even then, returning champs don't work anymore because the show tapes drastically out of order. Most days, six shows are taped, not five. The sixth show is held over to air with other "sixth shows" from other taping days, and are given the theme "America's Game". This kind of week is actually airing right now, so if you watch all this week, you'll notice the set is different every day because each episode was taped a different day. They began taping six shows a day back in 2001, and it's saved them millions since.

And yes, with how narrow the prize pool is now, and given how almost every game winner's total includes at least one trip, it could get to be a little much, as opposed to back in the day where the prizes were things like a $4,000 jet ski instead of a $10,000 trip to Hawaii. I remember one episode several years ago where a contestant won two cars in one episode (which is not possible now, but was back then), and Pat joked how back when they had returning champions, "People would go, 'Oh, another car. Isn't that great?"
 
https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/241155/fox-oos-set-impeachment-hearing-coverage/

Fox O&O's to air the Impeachment hearings

The Fox-owned stations are developing different approaches to coverage involving a mix of websites, social media platforms and duopolies (in cities where Fox has a second station). Here’s an overview:

Washington

WTTG is staying with regular news/Good Day DC and daytime programming. WTTG will do live reports on the hearing within newscasts. WTTG will also run a crawl throughout the day with information/developments on the impeachment hearings.
WDCA will air Fox’s Level 2 coverage of the impeachment hearings in its entirety.
Fox 5 Live, Digital will be live starting at 9 a.m. on both Wednesday and Friday from the Fox5 Live Newsroom Studio. The interactive newscasts will provide viewers with real time analysis and social media engagement. The coverage will be hosted by Fox5 Political Reporter/Anchor, Tom Fitzgerald. He will be live with two guests representing the right and left. Viewers can weigh in live with their tweets, which will run on the bottom of the screen via Tag board — throughout livestream coverage. Fox5 Live will be streamed on the following platforms: Fox5DC.com, Fox5 DC Facebook page, Fox5 DC Twitter page.
New York



WNYW and WWOR are not carrying it live on air. WNYW will stream it live on https://www.fox5ny.com/
Los Angeles

KTTV will keep Good Day LA and dip into extended clips of impeachment hearings as part of the broadcast while still providing weather, traffic updates and local headlines.
KTTV will toss to digital, and Fox News Channel for entire hearings.
KTTV is discussing potential use of duopoly station KCOP as a place to show the entire level2.
Chicago

WFLD plans on taking thefeed from the Level 2 special report of the impeachment hearings over the air and digitally Wednesday.
WFLD will monitor events during the day, and will break back to programming if there are breaks or opportunities.
WFLD will monitor the events of Wednesday and then decide on the plan for Friday’s coverage. There is a good chance WFLD will carry it on Fox 32 again, as well.
Philadelphia

On Wednesday, WTXF will carry the opening statements of the impeachment hearing on air.
Once the opening statements conclude, WTXF will alert viewers that they can watch the testimony live on the website, Fox29.com and the station’s Facebook page. WTXF will also alert viewers that Fox News Channel is carrying the testimony live.
San Francisco

KTVU will be taking the public impeachment hearings uninterrupted on duopoly station, KTVU Plus.
KTVU will also stream the hearings on Facebook and the station’s website when not streaming news.
KTVU will be dipping into the hearings as needed and will have extended coverage as part of its newscasts.
 
All of the ABC O&O's plus three others: WKRN Nashville, KMID Midland/Odessa, and WTNH New Haven, pre-empted Wheel of Fortune (except KTRK Houston which does not carry WOF; they air an hour newscast at 6:00) with the CMA Red Carpet arrivals.

WABC New York, WPVI Philly, and WTVD Raleigh all moved Wheel to their Live Well Network .2 subs, although the usual LWN show "More in Common" was still listed, and WPVI did not promote the move at all (not surprised; they promote Jeopardy! 10x more often than Wheel and they pre-empt Wheel at least once a month on average but don't dare to touch J! unless it's breaking news). WTNH and KABC LA didn't air the show at all tonight, and all the others bumped it overnight.

AFAIK, the special did not air on any ABC stations that air Jeopardy! at 7:30. Even though it was lost in a few cities today due to the hearings (including Houston where it airs on KTRK at 11:30 AM Central; unless they moved it to 13.2 LWN), J! and WOF will likely have the biggest difference in ratings tonight because the latter is lost in several top markets while the former is having a very-hyped Tournament of Champions. It's sad that WOF keeps getting hit with all these pre-emptions and then stations go on to justify it by saying that J! has higher ratings; a catch 22.

WABC also moved Rachael Ray to 7.2 LWN during the hearings today.
 
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As someone who has lived in the market a good number of years, the idea of WPVI somehow treating Wheel unfavorably is utterly bogus. Wheel promos air frequently, including on a near daily basis immediately leading into Jeopardy. And Jeopardy has historically been bumped by election year for debates that run an hour.

The 7:30 slot is valuable. It makes sense that is the slot used for the station’s commitment to local programming. And for a corporate priority like On the Red Carpet. With the perks of the prized real estate comes sometimes, and all things considered seldom, having to make way.

The stations don’t need to justify anything. No one is singling out the precious Wheel for adverse treatment.
 
As someone who has lived in the market a good number of years, the idea of WPVI somehow treating Wheel unfavorably is utterly bogus. Wheel promos air frequently, including on a near daily basis immediately leading into Jeopardy. And Jeopardy has historically been bumped by election year for debates that run an hour.

WPVI posts about Jeopardy! like three times a day on its FB page over the smallest happenings, yet they almost never post about Wheel. They also have a special promo advertising "Your winning lineup": Eyewitness News at 6:00, World News Tonight at 6:30, and Jeopardy! at 7:00. There is absolutely no reason this promo shouldn't be mentioning "Wheel at 7:30" as well, unless Jeopardy! is commissioning it. WABC has an identical promo.

Also, every Black Friday, when ABC schedules College Football to end at 7:00, WPVI bumps J! overnight out of fear that overrun will pre-empt it, and they put news at 7:00 instead. For at least the past two years, those games overran to at least 7:30, which caused the news to run to 8:00 and Wheel ended up not airing at all. WABC just leaves everything as is, which meant no J! but Wheel still aired at least partially.

If the O&O's aired Jeopardy! at 7:30, then I'm very certain OTRC would have decided not to even air the special on the O&O's. Last year, there was no such special and only WKRN Nashville aired the Red Carpet, but that station is the worst when it comes to pre-empting Wheel. Yesterday was episode 48 of the new season and WKRN has bumped Wheel overnight 12 times to date - that means they only air Wheel at its normal time 75% of the time which is unacceptable. J! never gets pre-empted in Nashville because it airs on the local FOX affiliate WZTV at 5:00 Central, usually out of the way of any special events or sports.
 
Well here in Seattle the ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates all pre-empted 9pm to now with impeachment hearings coverage while Q13 Fox did not. Has this pattern been repeated with your local affiliates?
 
CBS and NBC signed off around 2:01 Eastern and ABC around 2:18.

In New York, WABC bumped Rachael Ray to 7.2 Live Well Network, where the show aired in full. It also aired simultaneously on WABC, JIP'd after the hearing coverage signed off.
 
If we’re talking the last few weeks, of course WPVI posts about Jeopardy because it’s the tournament. And as a general matter, it got extra mentions due to topics related to Alex’s illness and the Holzhauer run. Look at the overall circumstances.

When Pat has emergency surgery, that was repeatedly on the social media feeds. Dollars to donuts when the Vanna episodes air, it will also get attention.

And there’s zero substantiation that On the Red Carpet wouldn’t have aired if the shows were reversed. Sometimes new things are introduced that didn’t air the year before. There didn’t used to be as much red carpet coverage of a lot of ceremonies, but the audience has grown for that type of content. It makes sense to expand it to more high-profile awards shows.

And nitpicking over a commercial? Seriously? Jeopardy has far more in common with the news programs. It may have felt like a better fit and worked better within the time constraints. Objectivity is helpful.

And good news—WPVI is airing a Thanksgiving Parade 100th anniversary schedule on 11/21 at 7:30 leading into primetime.
 
When Pat has emergency surgery, that was repeatedly on the social media feeds. Dollars to donuts when the Vanna episodes air, it will also get attention.

I'm sure they will, but I won't be the least bit surprised if WPVI suddenly decides to pre-empt one of those episodes with a special.


And good news—WPVI is airing a Thanksgiving Parade 100th anniversary schedule on 11/21 at 7:30 leading into primetime.

Of course they find yet another excuse to sabotage Wheel's November sweeps ratings. Philly is the #4 market. Every time they pre-empt Wheel, it loses out on hundreds of thousands of viewers, even if they bump it overnight or to a sub. There is no reason to air a pre-produced special on a weekday in a time slot meant for an iconic, long-running first-run syndicated program, unless they don't schedule a new episode that day (which Wheel never does; they stopped doing mid-season reruns in the late 90's). These kinds of specials should be airing over the weekend (or at least in this case, Thanksgiving itself or the day prior would be somewhat understandable). WABC always airs these kinds of specials either Saturday at 7:00 or 7:30 outside of football season, or Sundays at 5:30 or 6:30 otherwise.

They're just picking on Wheel at this point. Especially considering that next week is supposed to contain a Philadelphia-themed episode that may or may not fall on Thursday (it is known not to be Monday or Tuesday).


Besides, when was the last time WPVI pre-empted Jeopardy! but not Wheel of Fortune? Besides them bumping J! overnight during Black Friday College Football but keeping Wheel at its normal time and letting it get pre-empted by a delayed newscast thanks to near-guaranteed overrun, of course. The October 2017 Las Vegas shooting when World News Tonight was an optional hour broadcast? None of the evening network news shows did hour-long editions since then. WPVI did pre-empt J! with a NJ gubernatorial debate back in ~2017, but that pre-empted Wheel as well (WABC also aired the debate). Like I said, when Jeopardy! goes, Wheel almost-always goes with it, or it's just Wheel; hardly ever the other way around, regardless of which show airs in the 7:30 slot (see WBZ Boston moving J! to 7:00 when they pre-empt 7:30).
 
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SEC on CBS overran to 7:45 again like last Saturday.

FOX's broadcast signed off on schedule at 11:30 Eastern tonight.

ABC overran to 11:17, and WABC began the news at 11:20. Still not clear how KGO handles the runtime of its "After the Game" program. This time, it ran all the way to 9:00 Pacific, skipping over Weekend Wheel of Fortune, as was usually the case when the games ran past 11E/8P, even though at least half of WOF aired last Saturday when the game overrun was roughly the same.


Speaking of football, game shows, and California stations, KABC Los Angeles will be airing both Wheel and Jeopardy! on a one-day delay (Tue-Sat) for the next two weeks due to that station carrying two consecutive MNF games, with no weekend reruns for those weeks. As is the case with the reruns during football season, the Friday episodes of J! are scheduled for Saturday at 8:00 (meaning they'll get JIP'd if ABC's final college football game overruns), and Wheel's at 8:30. The listings are a bit messed up for the first week, however - Monday's eps aren't listed at all, Tue-Fri are listed on their actual days, and Friday's episodes are listed on both Friday and Saturday. The second week has both shows' episodes listed correctly.
 
I'm sure they will, but I won't be the least bit surprised if WPVI suddenly decides to pre-empt one of those episodes with a special.
Generally not a time they air as many specials. The city's holiday tree lighting event, of which they are a sponsor, should have already happened by that point. Parade will be over. Unlikely, but since you're not living in the market, so what?


Of course they find yet another excuse to sabotage Wheel's November sweeps ratings. Philly is the #4 market. Every time they pre-empt Wheel, it loses out on hundreds of thousands of viewers, even if they bump it overnight or to a sub. There is no reason to air a pre-produced special on a weekday in a time slot meant for an iconic, long-running first-run syndicated program, unless they don't schedule a new episode that day (which Wheel never does; they stopped doing mid-season reruns in the late 90's). These kinds of specials should be airing over the weekend (or at least in this case, Thanksgiving itself or the day prior would be somewhat understandable). WABC always airs these kinds of specials either Saturday at 7:00 or 7:30 outside of football season, or Sundays at 5:30 or 6:30 otherwise.
Yippee for WABC. The parade is marking its 100th anniversary, and it is a huge (to understate it) commitment on the part of WPVI. That means there is every reason to air it on a weekday in whatever time slot they feel works best for their business. They serve Philadelphia. The vast majority of the days, they're airing a game show and giving it plenty of promotion and care. 80% of the shows just that week (barring breaking news) will air on time. Oh the horror of one show out of pattern. Airing the special after the parade is not logical for a preview/retrospective leading into parade #100, and the day before is a lower viewership night. There's nothing in any book that says WPVI needs to take a program about something important to the station and dump it in garbage time to appease those with an over the top affinity for a particular show that airs the vast majority of the time.

They're just picking on Wheel at this point.
That's really not even remotely plausible.

Especially considering that next week is supposed to contain a Philadelphia-themed episode that may or may not fall on Thursday (it is known not to be Monday or Tuesday).
Or, you know, sometimes schedules work out the way they work out.

Besides, when was the last time WPVI pre-empted Jeopardy! but not Wheel of Fortune? Besides them bumping J! overnight during Black Friday College Football but keeping Wheel at its normal time and letting it get pre-empted by a delayed newscast thanks to near-guaranteed overrun, of course. The October 2017 Las Vegas shooting when World News Tonight was an optional hour broadcast? None of the evening network news shows did hour-long editions since then. WPVI did pre-empt J! with a NJ gubernatorial debate back in ~2017, but that pre-empted Wheel as well (WABC also aired the debate). Like I said, when Jeopardy! goes, Wheel almost-always goes with it, or it's just Wheel; hardly ever the other way around, regardless of which show airs in the 7:30 slot (see WBZ Boston moving J! to 7:00 when they pre-empt 7:30).

Which means nothing other than Wheel occupies the primo leading-into-primetime slot. The station has a long history of doing local programming to serve, you know, its actual community.
 
80% of the shows just that week (barring breaking news) will air on time. Oh the horror of one show out of pattern.

While Jeopardy! gets to air 100% of its shows on time, and then later the station will brag about how it's their highest rated show, partially because they make it that way. They once posted an infographic on their Facebook page saying that J! on WPVI gets more viewers than Game of Thrones, while they didn't even mention Wheel.

It wouldn't be as annoying if their specials were an hour long and resulted in both shows getting the same treatment, but this constantly keeps happening to Wheel (which partners with WPVI on several occasions for Philly salutes) and never Jeopardy!

EP Harry Friedman was livid when he found out CBS's acquisition of TNF would mean Wheel and/or J! would get pre-empted on CBS stations, and when CBS asked him about doing a special promotional J! category or Wheel puzzle for TNF, he said, "I don't find the logic in supporting programming that pre-empts us", and yet Wheel keeps partnering with affiliates that pre-empt the show multiple times per year for local specials and events, yet rarely if ever pre-empt Jeopardy! Nashville aired <80% of last season's episodes, yet Wheel partnered with WKRN last season. Naturally, they gushed about the show and didn't pre-empt any episodes that week, then went back to the usual afterwards; they even pre-empted a rerun of the Nashville salute week.
 


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