2:06 AM Central Time was when WZTV-Nashville just started its newscast after Game 3 of the 2025 World Series. Have any other games in any sport ever pushed a newscast back as far as this one? I know it usually happens with teams playing on the West Coast.
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Longest delay of a local newscast due to a sporting event
- Thread starter RFCCRadioAudio
- Start date
It’s gotta be rarer to hear TV Stations on the west coast go through delays to other programming due to sports events going through overtime. The most we get from that situation is that the 5-6pm local news gets preempted at max when sports air at prime time on the networks.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Happened yesterday on KABC-TV/7 here in Los Angeles due to Monday Night Football.
Elimination of Eyewitness News' 5:00pm and 6:00pm editions, the replay of World News Tonight airing at 9:00pm instead of 6:30 (with a local post-game show preceding, no doubt to keep the schedule on track, since a live show can cut planned segments to end on time).
Then Jeopardy! and Wheel Of Fortune -- and would someone please explain to me why, when sports programming delays those two shows, they air in the reverse of their usual sequence in the 7:00pm hour? -- and a special edition of Eyewitness News at 10:30, which ironically did not preserve any of the commercial revenue from the earlier newscast cancellations, because the entire newscast was "breaking news" of a car chase on the 60 freeway, covered by Air 7 (naturally) that ended at 11:02.
I'm astonished any station in the east (or even central or mountain time zones) would have kept its staff on standby to start a news broadcast after that game. Who stays up until almost 3 AM to see the end of a game and then doesn't want to go straight to bed?
Here on the west coast, the FOX flagship station KTTV didn't even bother doing its 10 o'clock newscast, late or otherwise. All KTTV did was their "sports wrap" post-game show from Dodger stadium with a couple guys narrating replays while standing on the field. Then straight to "our regular programming already in progress." (Their 10 o'clock news broadcast's 1 AM rerun timeslot had an episode of TMZ stuffed into it.)
Here on the west coast, the FOX flagship station KTTV didn't even bother doing its 10 o'clock newscast, late or otherwise. All KTTV did was their "sports wrap" post-game show from Dodger stadium with a couple guys narrating replays while standing on the field. Then straight to "our regular programming already in progress." (Their 10 o'clock news broadcast's 1 AM rerun timeslot had an episode of TMZ stuffed into it.)
Under normal circumstances, ratings build slowly as you go through the 7 PM hour toward prime time beginning at 8 PM, which would make the 7:30 time slot the more valuable (watched) one when there's normal prime time programming beginning at 8. But if there's a late afternoon game with no regular prime time programming following it, then the viewing bell curve would instead be on the downslope immediately following the game. So I guess it makes sense for them to move what's normally the second but most watched show to be first, where the audience numbers are now the highest in a game's immediate wake.
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If I were a news director and my newscast was delayed past 12:30 or 1 because the World Series went to extras, I'd send the news team home for the night and plug in a sitcom repeat after the game. Forget revenue and audience at 2 AM. Back in the dinosaur age, they would have gone from the walk-off home run straight to the sign-off and national anthem.
Remember when CBS used to tape-delay the NBA playoffs to preempt the Late Movie in the '70s?
Remember when CBS used to tape-delay the NBA playoffs to preempt the Late Movie in the '70s?