• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

What stations pre-empted Network programming the most (or still do)

WBRC-6 in Birmingham was notorious for their preemptions during the 70's and 80's. Instead of Three's Company and Soap on Tuesday nights from 8-9, viewers were treated to Gunsmoke reruns. (Three's Company and Soap were delayed until the following Monday night after the late news). There was a time when Bewitched was delayed until Saturday evenings at 6 for reruns of the Rifleman. And Charlie's Angels ended up on Sunday afternoons opposite NFL football...again, for reruns of Marshall Dillon. It wasn't until well into the 80's or early 90's that they showed Nightline at all. They also didn't clear ABC's programming from 10-11 a.m. (Central), showing All My Children at that time, and airing a noon newscast and syndicated game shows at 12:30. Not that it mattered a lot to ABC, since WBRC was the dominant station in north-central Alabama at the time.

The three things that crosstown WAPI-13 (now WVTM) preempted once it became a full-time NBC affiliate in 1970 were:

*the second half of NBC's Sunday NFL package; those games went to CBS stations WBMG-42 (now WIAT), WCFT-33 in Tuscaloosa and WHMA-40 (now WJSU) in Anniston. Instead, Channel 13 showed the Bear Bryant Show (Alabama football highlights) and Auburn Football Review with Shug Jordan and later Doug Barfield.
*the first (and maybe second) season of Saturday Night Live, and
*the first season of Late Night with David Letterman.

Also, Channel 13 delayed the Tonight Show from 10:30/10:35 until 11:30/11:35, showing reruns of M*A*S*H at 10:30, and All in the Family, Carol Burnett and Friends, Taxi and the Jeffersons at 11:00. This continued even after Jay Leno took over from Johnny.

WBMG didn't preempt very much, if any CBS programming. It didn't matter much, since their signal was so poor a lot of people didn't even bother watching them, anyways.
 
nomadcowatbk said:
The Kansas City stations were in the late 60s/early 70s
http://www.wtv-zone.com/dpjohnson/kcit50/index.html
Click to expand...

That same author of the above website also said that Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-13 was the last affiliate to clear "Days of Our Lives" but not until 1984--as past retro Iowa schedules have indicated, WHO preempted Days and other NBC programs in the 12:30-2PM slot for midday movies from 1965-84. This author also used to post regularly about 8-10 years ago on the Google TV groups (and he had some very interesting points), and he said that in addition to the DOOL preemption in central Iowa WHO and most other NBC Iowa affiliates--except for WOC-6 (now KWQC) in Davenport (Quad Cities)--tape-delayed "Sanford and Son" in favor of "Hee Haw" on Friday nights from 6:30-7:30. He speculated that the reason for this was because they carried a 6PM newscast on Saturdays while most of the state's ABC stations--again except in the Quad Cities--carried Lawrence Welk on Saturdays at 6 (and Iowa would be one of those places where you NEVER put Hee Haw and Welk against each other). Meanwhile the Quad Cities' rights to BOTH Hee Haw and Welk in the '70s were held by CBS affiliate WHBF-4 (Rock Island, IL), which led to another notorious preemption--Hee Haw bumping "Incredible Hulk" on Friday nights at 7PM during 1979-80 as an alternate lead-in to "Dukes of Hazzard" (while Welk aired at 6PM Saturdays on WHBF)--with the Hulk bumped entirely in the Quad Cities for at least that season.

From what I have read from past schedules and observed from my childhood, the Quad Cities and Peoria affiliates had their preemption moments from the late '70s to early '90s--but I'll get into those more later.
 
The old WAKR-TV 49 Akron, Ohio did more than their share of preempting ABC from 1953-63..Often they would show double feature movies at 7:30 and 9 or 9:30, Akron University Basketball games and other local programming in ABC prime time, carrying less than half of the ABC schedule..One program they didnt miss carrying was "Voice Of Firestone" Monday nights as Firestone's Headquarters were in Akron..This changed around the 1963-64 season as WAKR-TV advertised carrying the "Full ABC Lineup"
 
KXAS Ft. Worth/Dallas and WMC Memphis were heavy pre-empters in the 80s.
 
The Edge of Night soap was not aired on some affiliates as I remember.Now we got stations Pre-empting syndie shows for informercials.Thats a whole other topic.
 
WSB Atlanta didn't carry NBC's gameshow block of "Jeopardy!",
"Who, What Or Where," and "Three On A Match"; it dropped
"Somerset" in the fall of 1974 as well. At one point it delayed
"Adam-12" and pre-empted NBC's Wednesday Mystery Movie
for its own movie.

WSB carried both "Hee Haw" and Welk; it never pre-empted
network programming for "Hee Haw" (Saturday 7 PM) but did
for Welk on at least four occasions: the 1973-74 season, when
it aired Welk on Fridays at 8:30 instead of "The Girl With Something
Extra" and "Needles And Pins"; the 1975-76 season (Sundays at 8,
pre-empting "The Family Holvak"); the winter and spring of 1978
(Fridays at 8), and 1979 until the switch to ABC (pre-empting "Sportsworld"
on Sunday afternoons). As an ABC affiliate, Ch. 2 started out carrying "Love
Boat" reruns at 11 AM, and I think "Three's Company" reruns as well, but
didn't start carrying ABC's 11 AM show again until "The View." It pre-empted
Jimmy Kimmel until a couple of years ago; also, it left "Ryan's Hope" at 12:30
(even after ABC moved it to 12 N) and didn't pick up "Loving" until "RH" was
canceled.

WTVT Tampa was another. When I lived there in the '70s it pre-empted "Joker's
Wild," "Young And The Restless," and "Tattletales,"; it aired "Search For Tomorrow"
on a half-hour delay. It also pre-empted CBS's Saturday newscast and delayed the
network's Friday movie to late Sunday. Later, it didn't carry "Bold And The Beautiful,"
showing "Y&R" at 1 after an hour-long noon newscast (nobody thought it would work
when new CBS affiliate WTSP elected to carry "Y&R" and "B&B" in pattern, but they
were wrong).
 
bpatrick said:
WTVT Tampa was another. When I lived there in the '70s it pre-empted "Joker's
Wild," "Young And The Restless," and "Tattletales,"; it aired "Search For Tomorrow"
on a half-hour delay. It also pre-empted CBS's Saturday newscast and delayed the
network's Friday movie to late Sunday. Later, it didn't carry "Bold And The Beautiful,"
showing "Y&R" at 1 after an hour-long noon newscast (nobody thought it would work
when new CBS affiliate WTSP elected to carry "Y&R" and "B&B" in pattern, but they
were wrong).
Click to expand...

Some of the programs were punted to other stations, such as WXLT (WWSB) or WTOG -- I knew from past schedules that WXLT carried Joker and WTOG carried CBS's Friday late movie. Also, back when WSUN-TV was indy in the late-1960s, they would carry CBS's Friday prime-time movie while WTVT carried their own.

As for soaps -- I think WTVT would drop "Search" entirely by the late-1970s, opting to carry Y&R on delay (don't know if it was a day or week); when Search moved to NBC, WFLA did not pick it up, opting for "All In The Family" reruns instead. WTVT did not carry "Capitol" (which no one else picked up) or B&B (which would be picked up around the early-1990s by WTMV (WMOR), until the affiliation switch).
 
This topic tends to come up from time to time, and whenever it does, I almost always say the same things: WPSD of Paducah, KY, was a heavy pre-empter back in the '80s, once even bumping NBC's Thursday night lineup for University of Kentucky basketball.

WBBJ of Jackson, TN, was also a heavy pre-empter. They aired The Gong Show in place of Soap, for instance, and they routinely aired Solid Gold during prime time.
 
I think by now all of you know how WBTV Charlotte aired
"The Price Is Right" on a day-behind at 10:30 AM, pre-empting
whatever gameshow CBS was airing then (such as "Press Your Luck"),
in order to carry the local "Top O' The Day" from 11:30 AM-12:30 PM.
At one point WBTV did not carry any of CBS's block from 3-4:30 PM,
opting for the Little Rascals and sitcom reruns; it aired movies on Monday
nights and delayed "Gunsmoke" and "Here's Lucy" to Saturday; it routinely
failed to air the last program on CBS's Saturday-morning schedule in the
late '60s and substituted a religious program, "Pastors Face Your Questions";
it pre-empted "The Bob Newhart Show" its first year (1972-73) in favor of
"Hollywood Squares."
 
nomadcowatbk said:
The Group W stations were heavy pre-empters
Click to expand...

Yep. KDKA in Pittsburgh pre-empted quite a lot at one time. They had their locally produced
Pittsburgh 2Day talk show for many years, which pre-empted most of the CBS soaps. They were
also the local flagship for Pittsburgh Pirates baseball and pre-empted a lot of prime-time during
the summer months.

Since becoming a CBS O&O they NEVER pre-empt the network!
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom