Markets without Litton's Weekend Adventure on ABC

[spencerkarter85]

Here in the Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson/Asheville market, we don't recieve the ABC Litton's Weekend Adventure programming block on Saturday Mornings (which includes Jack Hanna's Wild Countdown,Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin,Born to Explore, and Everyday Health, Food for Thought with Clair Thomas, and Culture Click). Instead we get those off network syndicated shows like Dog Tales, Sports Stars of Tomorrow, On The Spot, and DragonFlyTV which these preceeds crummy informercials at 9am. I know the GSP market is Informercial-Happy.

Is there any other markets that don't clear Litton's Weekend Adventure on ABC?

 

[azumanga]

WAWV in Terre Haute, Indiana, which switched back to ABC from Fox last year, doesn't clear "Weekend Adventure", either.

Wikipedia also says that KDNL in St. Louis also doesn't carry the block.

 

[Mario500]

WEAR-TV, the ABC affiliate in Pensacola, Florida, broadcasts only two programs from the block (which is really a syndicated block): "Jack Hanna's Wild Countdown" and "Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin". They broadcast "Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures", "Aqua Kids", "DragonFlyTV", "Career Day", and "Teen Kids News" along with the two programs mentioned previously as part of their Saturday morning programming.

 

[only1moore]

It must be a decision made by Sinclair management, since they own WEAR, KDNL and WLOS. I noticed WKEF/Dayton also avoids the Litton Weekend Adventure altogether, so if anything, chances are that WSYX/Columbus, WXLV/Winston-Salem, WICD/Champaign & WICS/Springfield, and WCHS/Charleston are either passing on or airing parts of the block.

Out here in Honolulu, KITV airs the block on Sundays due to live sports coverage from the mainland on Saturdays.

 

[anotherguyTN]

It's bad enough when stations pre-empt regular programming for grownups, but to me pre-empting kid's shows for infomercials, even if they replace them with something else at another time, is an all time low. ABC should be putting a stop to this.

One thing that this does prove is that if e/i rules weren't in place there would be a lot more stations that would doing the same thing. I'm not an e/i fan by any means, but if it didn't exist most stations would go to having news and/or sports at best or trash talk and infomercials at the worst on Saturday mornings.

 

[nathannah]

It must be a decision made by Sinclair management, since they own WEAR, KDNL and WLOS. I noticed WKEF/Dayton also avoids the Litton Weekend Adventure altogether, so if anything, chances are that WSYX/Columbus, WXLV/Winston-Salem, WICD/Champaign & WICS/Springfield, and WCHS/Charleston are either passing on or airing parts of the block.

Out here in Honolulu, KITV airs the block on Sundays due to live sports coverage from the mainland on Saturdays.

It's probably more with Sinclair that they have a huge E/I deal to air Cookie Jar E/I programming and other syndicated providers on their stations (where it mainly airs to nobody except non-cable homes against the network morning shows on weekdays), so they also have to package in their network affiliates on it because of a glut.

In this case, no objection to pre-emptions at all by them; most of the Litton programs are in the tradition of that syndicator, barely tolerable. Culture Click seems like an eighth-rate educational clone of The Soup, and the rest are just educational content without fun chasers to lighten the gruel (besides Corwin's and Hanna's shows, which are just their usual good shows but with HD production values). That, and ABC has seemed to lose all sense of how to program non-college football Saturdays, period; their one hour infomercial for Budweiser on Saturday afternoons is unwatchable and makes me yearn for the days of time-buy motorcross and skateboarding.

 

[spencerkarter85]

I don't understand why Sinclair's ABC affiliates (including WLOS 13) chosed to pass on Litton's Weekend Adventure block on ABC Saturday Mornings in favor of Cookie Jar Programming. That's the first time that WLOS 13 pre-empted an ABC network programming on a permanent basis in 12 years. The last inncodent that WLOS pre-empted an ABC program on a permanent basis I recall was/is the popular women's talk show The View (with Barbara Walters of course). Instead, they choosed to air Jerry Springer instead at 11am in place of The View from 1997 until it was cleared in 2000.

If I was an owner and had a license to operate an Independent station in my market (Greenville/Spartanburg, SC), I would call the station WSHK-TV 37. I would call affiliate relations at the ABC Television Network and have their permission to grant the rights for us to broadcast Litton's Weekend Adventure in place of WLOS 13 so viewers in the GSP market get to see it.

Just like the good ole days when Independent stations picked up network programming from the major networks (in which the affiliates didn't clear in their market). Three examples. 1.)In Philly, future ABC O&O WPVI 6 chosed to pass on The Edge of Night (when it moved from CBS to ABC in late 1975). As a result, there were protest letters and calls at the station. So, now-defunct Indie WKBS 48 broadcasted EON instead on three week delay. Also, WLOS didn't clear the ABC run of EON either. 2.)CBS affiliate (first stunt as CBS before becoming now-defunct UPN) KIRO-TV 7 once owned by the conservative Mormons (same owners of then-CBS, now NBC KSL 5 in Salt Lake City, Utah) refused to air The Bold and The Beautiful because of campy nature of the serial. Lots of fans protested at KIRO and the late William J. Bell (creater of B&B) sent a letter to the station. It was seen instead on an Indie station which is now MNT affiliate. After KIRO reverted back to CBS in 1997 (after chaning ownerships years earlier), they now carry B&B. 3.)In my home market, Indie WAXA 40 (now WMYA MY40) carried certain NBC programs that WYFF didn't clear including Super Password hosted by the late Bert Convy. At first WAXA broadcasted SP in place of Channel 4 at Noon because WYFF was broadcasting their NewsCenter4 newscasts at Noon followed by now-defunct Search For Tomorrow in which ended in late 1986 on NBC. Later, WAXA broadcasted SP on one-day delay basis at 11:30am every morning at the time of it's run.

 

[azumanga]

If I was an owner and had a license to operate an Independent station in my market (Greenville/Spartanburg, SC), I would call the station WSHK-TV 37.

Actually, you have no say on what channel you operate on -- each region as a pre-determined set of television channels available for broadcast. Also, channel 37 in North America is off-limits to broadcasting, as the frequencies used for that channel are used for radio astronomy. And for that reason, channel 37 is also not allowed for use as a PSIP.

 

[MarcB]

Does it matter? Watching a Test Pattern is more entertaining that the crap they called "Littons Weekend Adventure".

 

[spencerkarter85]

If I was an owner and had a license to operate an Independent station in my market (Greenville/Spartanburg, SC), I would call the station WSHK-TV 37.

Actually, you have no say on what channel you operate on -- each region as a pre-determined set of television channels available for broadcast. Also, channel 37 in North America is off-limits to broadcasting, as the frequencies used for that channel are used for radio astronomy. And for that reason, channel 37 is also not allowed for use as a PSIP.

Are you an expert on broadcasting?

 

[mjlarochelle]

If I was an owner and had a license to operate an Independent station in my market (Greenville/Spartanburg, SC), I would call the station WSHK-TV 37.

Actually, you have no say on what channel you operate on -- each region as a pre-determined set of television channels available for broadcast. Also, channel 37 in North America is off-limits to broadcasting, as the frequencies used for that channel are used for radio astronomy. And for that reason, channel 37 is also not allowed for use as a PSIP.

Are you an expert on broadcasting?

Everything Azamanga has said is true.

 

[Iowan]

Looks like Litton's gonna have some competition in 2012. Bellum Entertainment plans to air a syndicated EI block with shows including 'Animal Atlas', 'On The Spot', and a new show featuring chef Rocco DiSpirito. Here's my question: Will any ABC stations that pre-empted Litton's Weekend Adventure air any shows out of this block?