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2008 Jerry Lewis Telethon on CW 69: Airing the whole show or not?

C

caller10

For the 11th year in a row the annual Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon will be aired on WUPA CW 69. However several TV listings have CW 69 only airing the telethon for the first eight hours.

The TV listings in TV guide, the program guide on my Comcast DVR, and on CW69's own website only show the telethon being aired this year from Sunday night 9pm until 5am Labor Day morning (eight hours).

However, a site with a listing asking for volunteers .....

http://www.volunteermatch.org/search/opp410756.jsp

... clearly states that they need folks all the way into Monday evening, and that the venue (Sheraton Gateway Hotel Atlanta Airport) has a special room rate for volunteers staying overnight. So I think the TV listings are wrong. Does anyone know for certain?
 
Same here. TitanTV is showing it ending at 5 AM as well. It could be that the listings to both TV Guide and Tribune Media Services was put in wrong on WUPA's end.

Of course...it should still be on WAGA...but that incident involving the Children's Miracle Network telethon preempting Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals in 1997 put an end to that.
 
Yes I'm pretty sure the listing is an error. I did email two weeks ago both CW69 and the local MDA office, got no response. But I'm sure it's a mistake for two reasons:

1) the volunteer link I referenced above

2) there's been a trend the last dozen or so years where in many markets MDA can only get clearance for the last 10 or so hours of the show, but I've never heard of it just being the first hours.

You'll have to tell me more about that 1997 incident. I lived in my hometown of Columbus, Ga until coming to Atlanta in 1999.

Yes MDA would be much much much better off with Fox5; except for those few fans who hate the show to be interrupted/delayed by news & sports. It's easy to clear the whole show on 69, too easy. But they would get a lot of incidental cume on Fox5 they'd pick up, on 69 someone would almost have to go out of their way to find it.

I think I looked it up years ago on microfilm (pre-internet days) that the Jerry Lewis Telethon first aired in Atlanta in 1970 on channel 36 (I may be wrong this is from memory) ... then as was the case in many markets MDA worked it's way up from 2nd tier stations like 36 to 1st tier stations like WAGA. As the thon ages, that process went in reverse in many markets back to 2nd tier stations.
 
I don't think any of the Fox o&os carries the telethon
any longer; WNYW/5 New York used to, but I'm thinking
(somebody correct me on this) that WWOR has it now.
I also think that WAGA carried it maybe once or twice after
going to Fox, then gave it up.
 
WWOR has been the New York station for the Telethon since 1987.

My guess in regards to WAGA, is Fox 5 continued to carry the telethon via the terms of a contract, then MDA had to find a new TV home on WUPA 69.
 
caller10 said:
You'll have to tell me more about that 1997 incident. I lived in my hometown of Columbus, Ga until coming to Atlanta in 1999.
Click to expand...

WAGA preempted game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals to air the Children's Miracle Network telethon. This was before the Thrashers came to town in 1999, and there was a belief that no one cared about hockey in the South.

Hockey fans complained. WAGA had promised that the game would air on Fox Sports South, but it never happened. That game never aired in the Atlanta DMA as far as I know.

After that WAGA (which was now a Fox O&O) never preempted the network for anything except for preseason Falcons football (which went to WXIA in 2002). Now, they never preempt Fox network programming for any reason whatsoever (which is attributed more to being a Fox O&O then the 1997 incident).
 
caller10 said:
WWOR has been the New York station for the Telethon since 1987.

My guess in regards to WAGA, is Fox 5 continued to carry the telethon via the terms of a contract, then MDA had to find a new TV home on WUPA 69.
Click to expand...

Although Fox did have Joan Rivers' ill-fated talk show in 1986,
it began its regular schedule in the spring of '87, so that would
have been the first Labor Day that WNYW was a Fox o&o (and
remember that Fox had Sunday-night programming in 1987, which
would have hampered the start of the telethon in New York--it
couldn't have started at 9 PM on Channel 5).

I suspect that Fox had something to say about WAGA's continuing
to run the telethon after its contract expired.
 
caller10 said:
It appears the CW69 is showing the whole telethon, good to hear/see Rhubarb Jones too!
Click to expand...

I saw it this morning when I was changing channels. Looks like it was an error after all.
 
I grew up in NYC and it has always been on WWOR (back then it was just WOR) since the early 70's with Julius LaRossa being the host.
 
I always thought WNEW/WNYW carried the show up until 1986, with WWOR picking it up (with Tony Orlando and Dawn as hosts) in 1987?
 
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