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Prime Time delays

C

chris12

Guest
In looking at some of the schedules it seems that network stations pre-empting or delaying the prime time line-up was quite common in the 60s and into the 70s but it seems there was less of that by the late 70s-early 80s. Where there was some still there seemed to be not as much as in daytime. Was it the networks cracking down more perhaps or them feeling the prime time line up was more lucrative to carry.
 
...definitely. Often, the crackdown would come when a new owner bought an affiliate. For example, WBAY-TV/2 in Green Bay regularly pre-empted whatever was on the beginning of CBS' Thursday Night prime time schedule in the '60s and early '70s, pushing that show to Saturday or Sunday afternoons in favour of syndicated material like "Police Surgeon" or the revival of "I've Got a Secret." When the Norbertine Fathers sold WBAY in the early '70s, that pattern suddenly ended; I suspect CBS threatened to end their affiliation at the expiry of the then-current contract if the Thursday pre-emptions weren't scrapped...
 
That's also about the time a lot of stations switched networks as ABC started to go to new stations in various towns, sometimes to get off UHF and sometimes to hook into a station with better news ratings. Obviously, one of the draws would be a promise to carry all the network shows at the proper time, and for the station that was "abandoned" the new network would dictate that its shows had to go on as scheduled.
 
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