CBS (Sunday) Evening News--Spotload

[oldiesfan]

This may have come up in a thread sometime
last year, but is CBS unable to sell "real"
spots in their 6:00/6:30pm ET Sunday 'cast?

At least three of the breaks that I saw on
KPHO-TV Phoenix were filled with P.I. spots.

What I don't know is--were these network
spots or did they run the show "sustaining"
(now there's an old broadcasting term) and
allow the affiliates to sell the time?

 

[mrpariot]

> This may have come up in a thread sometime
> last year, but is CBS unable to sell "real"
> spots in their 6:00/6:30pm ET Sunday 'cast?
>
> At least three of the breaks that I saw on
> KPHO-TV Phoenix were filled with P.I. spots.
>
> What I don't know is--were these network
> spots or did they run the show "sustaining"
> (now there's an old broadcasting term) and
> allow the affiliates to sell the time?
>
Quite often, because LIVE sporting events run over scheduled times, CBS doesn't air a Sunday evening newscast to the east/central/mountain time zones. The broadcast is still produced for the Pacific time zone, but since they can't clear national spots on what amounts to a regional newscast they drop the scheduled spots and run promos and PI's. NBC is known to do the same thing when they feed a filler program to the Pacific zone on occasions like the "State Of The Union" or after a live sporting event in primetime.