Local CBS Stations Airing Paid Programming Instead Of CBS Primetime

[BMR]

They can't really do that, because it would involve the FCC in the details of station programming -- something that would surely violate the First Amendment.

What the FCC could do (and once did do) is to completely prohibit infomercials on broadcast stations by putting in place a maximum limit for the amount of advertising that can run in an hour.

That's broadly what happens in most of Europe- a limit on the amount of advertising allowed. Most European countries have this.

 

[briancraig]

I'm not in favor of the FCC getting involved with programming but since spectrum space is limited and not anyone can just start a tv station, I do think the FCC should get more strict about stations serving the public interest at license renewal time.

For example, I think any licensee that enters into a "shared services agreement" with another local station should lose their license.

I also think stations that are almost all infomercial or home shopping shouldn't get "must carry" status on cable systems.

 

[MarcB]

When MY TV 9 pre-empts its prime-time programming from MY Network TV for the St. Jude's Hospital Infomercial or New York Yankees Baseball they always air prime-time programming at 10:35PM following the conclusion of The 10PM News. It's the local programming that doesn't get aired, which would be TMZ at 10:35 and Excused at 11:05. (Though in my opinion not much is missed by Excused being pre-empted).

 

[recto101]

KPIX5 a CBS O&O does prempt CBS Primetime and the CBS Evening News sometimes to air NFL Network Coverage of the Oakland Raiders on Thursday Night Football. and in some cases go to Disney Owned ESPN to air Monday Night Football when the 49ers are playing that night.
However some of the CBS programming that is pre-empted from KPIX goes to San Francisco's other CBS O&O KBCW 44 the CW.

Look when KPIX5 was owned by Group W they even pre-empt CBS Primetime for Warriors basketball.

I only know of another CBS O&O that does pre-empt CBS Shows and that is KCBS 2 but thats just to air a car chase from sky9 AKA chopper 2

 

[cowboybud]

Scripps stations were mentioned earlier. WMC in Memphis when it was owned by Scripps was notorious for pre-emptions all day long, but especially in the daytime from the 70's to the early 90's. I had always thought that NBC should have pulled their affiliation at that time. Their pre-emption antics ended in the 90's when the station changed owners and the station manager who had been bad about pre-emptions left.

Wasn't Lance Russell (the rasslin announcer) WMC's program director for much of this time?

 

[anotherguyTN]

Scripps stations were mentioned earlier. WMC in Memphis when it was owned by Scripps was notorious for pre-emptions all day long, but especially in the daytime from the 70's to the early 90's. I had always thought that NBC should have pulled their affiliation at that time. Their pre-emption antics ended in the 90's when the station changed owners and the station manager who had been bad about pre-emptions left.

Wasn't Lance Russell (the rasslin announcer) WMC's program director for much of this time?

I think that Lance Russell was more involved with wrestling by the time he moved to WMC. The station manager during that time was Ron Klayman, and he got much of the blame for WMC's pre-emptions. He continually ignored complaints about pre-emptions from viewers and the local newspapers as well, and got worse over time as if to spite them. He left in 1993 when WMC was sold, which is also about the same time the pre-emptions ended. Like I said earlier, NBC should have pulled WMC's affiliation over their stunts.

 

[nathannah]

I very rarely see it done in Milwaukee or Green Bay anymore, where it used to be a regular occurrence up until 2007, when it seemed the Billy Graham Crusade specials faded out from the CBS affiliates that took them entirely. Currently though it only seems to be done on Saturday nights on WTMJ/NBC Milwaukee when an infomercial block or bad 90's TV movie filled with corn syrup schmaltz plots airs, where the only thing lost is an expendable repeat of a procedural nobody cares about (the last time a network program at least a few cared about was pre-empted was Face the Ace by them, and in that case it was a mercy pre-emption since it hit XFL levels in the Nielsens). They used to be heavy on infomercials on Saturday and would even pre-empt the Notre Dame postgame in 2009 and 2010 to cut right to a scheduled one, but they got so many complaints they had to stop (that, or the economic meltdown passed for them, because they used to air so many Hydroxytone ads I thought that rube eye cream was their only sponsor at times). Their sister station in WGBA also had the same heavy pre-emptions in the last couple of years, including daytime syndicated programming, but they seem to be done now.

Green Bay's WBAY/ABC did it on Tuesday nights until last year with the first hour of ABC primetime with a local football show, but they've canceled it to air the DWTS "Recap for Dummies". Again though, at least until V aired in that slot and forced WBAY to take the show live, the football show did much more for WBAY than the awful sitcoms ABC plugged in that slot. And in Milwaukee, WITI/Fox has only pre-empted one Fox show in their history, Osbournes Reloaded (which aired in late, late night). Again, mercy pre-emption; these stations do it for reasons that seemed right for the market and so they aren't sponsored by the "huge rolls in a warehouse" carpet outlets and law firms that populate their late night schedules.

Also, these days with the many modes you can catch programming outside of a network mandated timeslot (Hulu, Netflix, network site/player, YouTube, certain other questionable means), I have much more latitude for a network pre-emption than I had five years ago. I still remember the one night I had to wait for a Gilmore Girls ep to air until 10pm because of a last-second Marquette conference tourney game being scheduled; every day I'm thankful that the multiple ESPN's and Big Ten Network were created so that this doesn't happen much on broadcast TV any longer.

 

[firepoint525]

Scripps stations were mentioned earlier. WMC in Memphis when it was owned by Scripps was notorious for pre-emptions all day long, but especially in the daytime from the 70's to the early 90's. I had always thought that NBC should have pulled their affiliation at that time. Their pre-emption antics ended in the 90's when the station changed owners and the station manager who had been bad about pre-emptions left.

I would also add that WPSD-channel 6 in Paducah was also very pre-emption-happy during that same time frame. Can't say how they are now, as I no longer live in their coverage area.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I don't get to see WPSD much either now since it was dropped off the Dyersburg, TN cable system. I'd see it at my mother's house there. I occasionally see it when we visit my wife's sister in the Marion/Carbondale, IL area.

 

[recto101]

KPIX5 a CBS O&O does prempt CBS Primetime and the CBS Evening News sometimes to air NFL Network Coverage of the Oakland Raiders on Thursday Night Football. and in some cases go to Disney Owned ESPN to air Monday Night Football when the 49ers are playing that night.
However some of the CBS programming that is pre-empted from KPIX goes to San Francisco's other CBS O&O KBCW 44 the CW.

Look when KPIX5 was owned by Group W they even pre-empt CBS Primetime for Warriors basketball.

I only know of another CBS O&O that does pre-empt CBS Shows and that is KCBS 2 but thats just to air a car chase from sky9 AKA chopper 2

KPIX a CBS O&O would sometimes pre-empt CBS Primetime for Sutter-Health PR Video's.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Station's seem to due to their network pre-emptions during non-sweeps periods and they often try to schedule them during a reruns, but a lot of times network changes the schedule and schedules a new episode when the pre-emption is scheduled. You never see pre-emptions during sweeps periods

Michael's Moore's TV Nation on NBC was pre-empted in Phoenix by infomercials for a local hospital chain. I don't know if they knew about Michael Moore or the station was gonna pre-empt it anyway for infomercial since it was a low rated summer replacement show.

KSHB runs infomercials at 6:30PM Saturday and right after SNL and the Sunday Night News (often delayed due to low running football games). Last winter, they pre-empted some reruns during NBC primetime for a Big 12 Basketball game that are normally seen on sister station KMCI (this game was even involving K-State, Mizzou, or KU) and last spring an hour long Gary Lezak severe weather special but that's about it.

Last year, KSDK pre-empted a new episode of Community for a local grocery chain infomercial

 

[imhomerjay]

If the infomercials pitched remedial grammar lessons, it might be considered a public service.

 

[BRNout]

While I agree with the "we have enough gov't regulations in place" crowd, it isn't right to let affiliates have it both ways. IF they insist on being the market's sole distribution point for CBS programming, then they should be required (perhaps by contract with the cable/satellite provider) to provide said programming on schedule. If they don't want to do this, then cable systems should be allowed to add another affiliate to the lineup that would.

Put simply, if you want a monopoly on CBS programming in Myrtle Beach, then you need to deliver that programming. Infomercials pre-empting network primetime fare should be a breach of that contract. So, if that's the way you want to manage your station then fine - but then again, viewers should also have an alternate option for CBS programming. If you want to watch the colon blow infomercial, be my guest. But the market's CBS station should be the market's CBS station.

The days of massive pre-emptions should have ended with that cable "reform" act of 1996 when alternates were knocked off cable lineups everywhere.

 

[philosofy]

KPIX5 a CBS O&O does prempt CBS Primetime and the CBS Evening News sometimes to air NFL Network Coverage of the Oakland Raiders on Thursday Night Football. and in some cases go to Disney Owned ESPN to air Monday Night Football when the 49ers are playing that night.
However some of the CBS programming that is pre-empted from KPIX goes to San Francisco's other CBS O&O KBCW 44 the CW.

That doesn't have anything to do with pre emptions. But to do with the NFL broadcast rules. If the local team has a home game on cable then it will be also be broadcast by an OTA station, but only if the game isn't subject to a blackout.

 

[imhomerjay]

Given the wide availability of online and on demand options, the notion of a network's programming not being otherwise available is antiquated to the point of being quaint.

But why stop at networks? If station A signs up for Jeopardy, they had better deliver it every single weekday, or else let the other stations sign up for it as well because, you know, that would clearly work well. Every station in town could run it,or the dish/cable system could pipe in random stations just to ensure no one misses a single day of Trebek. Seems about as valuable as the rerun of 2.5 Men or whatever happened to be bumped.

The market will ultimately let the stations and affiliates figure it out, sans government interference (never mind the law of untended consequences). Somehow, the residents will find a way to get over the occasional program being bumped and move on with their lives.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Put simply, if you want a monopoly on CBS programming in Myrtle Beach, then you need to deliver that programming. Infomercials pre-empting network primetime fare should be a breach of that contract. So, if that's the way you want to manage your station then fine - but then again, viewers should also have an alternate option for CBS programming. If you want to watch the colon blow infomercial, be my guest. But the market's CBS station should be the market's CBS station.

Generally, the networks do retain the right to offer programs not cleared by their primary affiliate to another station in the market. Typically they will only exercise this right for stations who decline whole series and not single episodes.

 

[TexasTom]

For childrens’ shows, the limits were (and still are) even stricter, which is why we don't see infomercials aimed at kids.

And for that reason, this is why the networks got out of Saturday morning, leaving programming of E/I friendly shows to third parties or, in Fox's case, sell its time to an infomercial broker and give up entirely. And even for the E/I blocks, at least one, Litton Media for its "Weekend Adventure" on ABC, refuse to sell traditional commercial time at all, opting to show only PI and pharmaceutical ads instead, none slanted towards kids and, in some cases, not necessarily to parents.

It's a nice theory that those restrictions on children's advertising are the reason why the networks got out of the Saturday morning business -- but the only problem is that it's wrong. Those restrictions were in place from the beginning of the nineties, but the chilrdren's TV business on broadcast TV remained pretty healthy for a good ten years after those restrictions were legislated in place. During those ten years, Fox drastically expanded it's children's programming schedule, and both the WB and UPN entered the business. If this particular bit of government regulation had been strangling the business, none of that would have happened.

What did happen was that competition from Fox and the WB on Saturday mornings made cartoons less profitable for ABC, CBS, and NBC -- who instead chose to expand established news franchises to the weekend. And, ultimately, competition from Nick, Cartoon Network, and the Disney Channel made the business less appealing to Fox, the WB, and UPN. On top of that, a difficulty in filling local advertising slots during network children's shows made affiliates less than enthusiastic over carrying large blocks of difficult to sell kids programs. So declining ratings combined with pressure from affiliates is what encouraged the networks to get out of this business.

The chilrdren's TV advertising limits appear to be (at most) a minor consideration.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

For childrens’ shows, the limits were (and still are) even stricter, which is why we don't see infomercials aimed at kids.

And for that reason, this is why the networks got out of Saturday morning, leaving programming of E/I friendly shows to third parties or, in Fox's case, sell its time to an infomercial broker and give up entirely. And even for the E/I blocks, at least one, Litton Media for its "Weekend Adventure" on ABC, refuse to sell traditional commercial time at all, opting to show only PI and pharmaceutical ads instead, none slanted towards kids and, in some cases, not necessarily to parents.

It's a nice theory that those restrictions on children's advertising are the reason why the networks got out of the Saturday morning business -- but the only problem is that it's wrong. Those restrictions were in place from the beginning of the nineties, but the chilrdren's TV business on broadcast TV remained pretty healthy for a good ten years after those restrictions were legislated in place. During those ten years, Fox drastically expanded it's children's programming schedule, and both the WB and UPN entered the business. If this particular bit of government regulation had been strangling the business, none of that would have happened.

What did happen was that competition from Fox and the WB on Saturday mornings made cartoons less profitable for ABC, CBS, and NBC -- who instead chose to expand established news franchises to the weekend. And, ultimately, competition from Nick, Cartoon Network, and the Disney Channel made the business less appealing to Fox, the WB, and UPN. On top of that, a difficulty in filling local advertising slots during network children's shows made affiliates less than enthusiastic over carrying large blocks of difficult to sell kids programs. So declining ratings combined with pressure from affiliates is what encouraged the networks to get out of this business.

The chilrdren's TV advertising limits appear to be (at most) a minor consideration.

Do those advertising restricts apply to cable networks? Isn't Zevo-3 just an infomercial for Sketchers?

 

[nathannah]

For childrens’ shows, the limits were (and still are) even stricter, which is why we don't see infomercials aimed at kids.

And for that reason, this is why the networks got out of Saturday morning, leaving programming of E/I friendly shows to third parties or, in Fox's case, sell its time to an infomercial broker and give up entirely. And even for the E/I blocks, at least one, Litton Media for its "Weekend Adventure" on ABC, refuse to sell traditional commercial time at all, opting to show only PI and pharmaceutical ads instead, none slanted towards kids and, in some cases, not necessarily to parents.

It's a nice theory that those restrictions on children's advertising are the reason why the networks got out of the Saturday morning business -- but the only problem is that it's wrong. Those restrictions were in place from the beginning of the nineties, but the chilrdren's TV business on broadcast TV remained pretty healthy for a good ten years after those restrictions were legislated in place. During those ten years, Fox drastically expanded it's children's programming schedule, and both the WB and UPN entered the business. If this particular bit of government regulation had been strangling the business, none of that would have happened.

What did happen was that competition from Fox and the WB on Saturday mornings made cartoons less profitable for ABC, CBS, and NBC -- who instead chose to expand established news franchises to the weekend. And, ultimately, competition from Nick, Cartoon Network, and the Disney Channel made the business less appealing to Fox, the WB, and UPN. On top of that, a difficulty in filling local advertising slots during network children's shows made affiliates less than enthusiastic over carrying large blocks of difficult to sell kids programs. So declining ratings combined with pressure from affiliates is what encouraged the networks to get out of this business.

The chilrdren's TV advertising limits appear to be (at most) a minor consideration.

Do those advertising restricts apply to cable networks? Isn't Zevo-3 just an infomercial for Sketchers?

They don't (which is why The Hub can exist with Hasbro ownership), but it's de facto that the broadcast guidelines are used for children's cable networks most of the time because the moment you get too many cases like Zevo-3 on cable, 2011's Peggy Charren rises up and so do the mommyblogs about how the cable networks are 'selling to the children'. Nicktoons could only do Zevo-3 because expectations are so low (we're talking 5-digit audiences in prime time on a good night) that they can get away with it there. Nickelodeon would be slayed if they tried it on the main channel.

 

[DToTheJ]

People - it's called the "reply" button - use it. Danke.

Anyhoo - CBS O&O's were notorious for pre-empting shows like "Entertainment Tonight" in the prime access hour in the late 90's.