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They preempted that for this?

They really go overboard for blizzards in the northeast!

These things always remind me of an SNL skit from many years ago, with Joe Piscopo playing Ted Koppel, announcing the death of Buckwheat, then repeating the "tape" of Buckwheat (Eddie Murphy) being shot...over, and over, and over...ad nauseum.
 
What i don't understand is why does stations blow out all of their shows for blizzards. Shouldn't they stick to the regular shows until it happens?
Here, it rarely happens, expect for a tornado warning, like in Simpsonville, SC in December; WYFF/4 wiped out their newscast and commercials because it was a big tornado.
I remember when WYFF split the screen once during a Dolphins-Chargers playoff game for a winter storm that was in SC; I was impressed that they could do that.
 
My reply to the "Most Inexplicable Network Preemption" thread in light of the Duke-UNC game on CBS bumped in my neighboring Peoria/Bloomington market (WMBD-31) due to the Easter Seals telethon got me thinking.

The proof in the pudding for Duke-UNC not playing in Peoria tonight is the Easter Seals telethon link on WMBD's website:

http://centralillinoisproud.com/easterseals-2010

Also a thread on one of the message boards sponsored by the Peoria Journal-Star alluded to tonight's preemption:

http://www.pjstarforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=84301

This Saturday, Duke-UNC is on ESPN, but CBS has Showtime boxing from Brooklyn. And it won't play in Peoria because of the Easter Seals Telethon!
 
FOX 61 pre-empted the first 17 mins of Wendy Williams last Thursday extending their morning news because of an Amber Alert. Really ridiculous because the Amber Alert was issued at 3:30AM and their news starts at 4AM. There was no update so there was no reason to extend their news past 10AM. The news went til 10:12 and then they did 5 mins of commercials. They other stations ran regular programming and aired a scroll regarding the Amber Alert.
 
If a front-page headline mentions the storm damage, I guess it was bad enough. I'm grateful I knew in time to record my ABC sitcoms on the channel that never pre-empts anything. Given the number of bulletins, I should be glad Charlotte's ABC affiliate was only on the air for a couple of minutes at the beginning of each show. And I do remember seeing some serious lightning that appeared to be right where I live. I did hear a lot of thunder and see a lot of lightning, and it got windy, but where I live it wasn't serious.

The NBC station, when the worst of it was happening, ran a crawl. I recorded "Jeopardy" on two stations just in case. I'm lucky my cable system still has them both because with an antenna "Jeopardy", during all this, was postmodernist art. The ABC station, with an antenna, had no such problems.
 
From another thread:

I've noticed too, just by reading the old schedules here as well as my own research, that many NBC stations (whether they were the flagship or an affiliate) back in the '60s, 70s, and into the '80s were bumping network programming for baseball. As example, WKJG was a Cubs TV affiliate at least back in the 70s (I think I think they even picked up some Tigers games also), and of course, several big NBC stations held the broadcast rights to their local baseball team once upon a time--KSD(K) with the Cardinals, WWJ/WDIV with the Tigers, WLWT with the Reds, WTMJ with the Brewers, and so on.

WYFF/4 did the same thing with ACC telecasts- and i'd imagine it also happened in ACC and SEC country too. In Iowa, the same thing happened with the Hawkeyes games too, and those games got big ratings. I always hated it that the ACC games preempted St. Elsewhere, but let's face it, basketball would draw more viewers in those areas.

IMO, the first half of March has to be the worst time for local preemptions of network programs. Coming right after February sweeps, shows are bumped for things like college (and high school) basketball tournaments, to telethons in Green Bay and Peoria, from news specials to Billy Graham Crusades to St Jude infomercials. Even PBS isn't safe with pledge drives occurring around the same time. Go through old TV listings in the Google News Archive and you'll see what I mean.
 
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From the aforementioned Google News Archive:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=SFOYbPikdlgC&dat=20010309&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 7)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A7-hzOuI2KQC&dat=19930311&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 111)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=Z610oKUqOA4C&dat=19910307&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 21)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=QLZAdv6BrvsC&dat=19880311&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 8)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A7-hzOuI2KQC&dat=19890309&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 109)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=Uo5fLKClJkAC&dat=19940310&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 21)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...Nk4iAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zqsFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3320,470622 (page 11)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...DElWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=I-sDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3628,896097 (page 30)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...c8dAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cCQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5117,1916256 (page 19)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=0N-VGjzr574C&dat=19970307&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 10)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...BUBPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4wIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=979,3257232 (page 22)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=9fRKRCJz75UC&dat=19900309&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 14)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...OdRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BHADAAAAIBAJ&pg=5826,9887595 (page 12)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=gL9scSG3K_gC&dat=19970307&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 57)
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=bxbQgRQgr4sC&dat=19990305&printsec=frontpage&hl=en (page 7)
 
The only preemptons i see these days are for ACC basketball- and only in the south. But it used to be bad, not just with basketball, but Billy Graham, and also telethons too. The MDA telethon always seemed to cause issues with the US Open tennis tournament. The Children's Miracle Network telethon always seemed to come during the NBA Finals, but NBC was smart to schedule the games for prime time after 1991. The My Network affiliate is carrying the ACC games this week in Asheville, so it shouldn't have much of a problem for the ABC shows, but the ACC games are also on ESPN2.
 
I remember a few times when WSPA/7 would preempt "Family Feud" to show a NCAA Tournament game that started at 7:30- the Minnesota-Duke game in 1989, the Connecticut-Clemson game in 90, and the Tar Heels first round and regional semi games in 1991 come to mind. I believe this happened due to WSPA's coverage area going into parts of North Carolina so they had to show those games in their entirety.
 
An example from Bluenoser's TV Listings Archive, this one with high school basketball on WRTV (back when it was NBC) and a movie dumping part of ABC's lineup on WTHR. And there were pledge breaks on PBS at that time too. (Strangely, PBS airing tennis?)

Central Indiana Sat, Mar 6, 1976
https://tvlistingsarchive.blogspot.com/2017/03/central-indiana-sat-mar-6-1976.html

Indiana was (and still is) crazy about high school basketball. WRTV was pre-empting NBC programming for a sectional final! At the time, there were 64 sectionals (so teams that won their sectional final would still have had to win five more games in order to win a state title)
 
Indiana was (and still is) crazy about high school basketball. WRTV was pre-empting NBC programming for a sectional final! At the time, there were 64 sectionals (so teams that won their sectional final would still have had to win five more games in order to win a state title)

At least in large media markets, most network O&Os or affiliates are duopolies. For example, here in San Francisco, CBS also owns the CW station, and Fox also owns an indy. So they'll either run the sporting event on the lesser station, or switch the network programming for that night to the lesser station.
 
Indiana was (and still is) crazy about high school basketball. WRTV was pre-empting NBC programming for a sectional final! At the time, there were 64 sectionals (so teams that won their sectional final would still have had to win five more games in order to win a state title)

So is West Virginia. With the exception of the eastern panhandle ( Martinsburg ) I can recall a few times when a single game would air in all of West Virginia TV and radio markets.
 
WYFF/4 did that when Clemson was in the 1980 tourney, and the game was produced by NCAA Productions. I'd imagine they'd delay Johnny Carson to show the game, since it was on the west coast.
 


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