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Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy Move to WBZ-TV

B

bostonmediaguy

Beginning Oct. 19, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! will move to WBZ-TV at 7:00 PM and 7:30 PM. The Insider and Entertainment Tonight move to TV38. I would guess that a big promotional push will be tied to the three-weeks of Boston episodes for November sweeps.

What happens to Patriots All Access, which pre-empts the prime access hour on WBZ-TV Fridays remains a mystery. I cannot imaging them pre-empting Wheel and Jeopardy! Were it me? I would pre-empt network prime at 8:00 PM Saturdays for it.
 
Wow, that's a big blow to TV38. Unless Wheel and Jeopardy were not doing well, they gave TV38 a good primetime line-up. The Insider and ET are second-best to the game shows. Also, TV38 already airs The Insider and ET at 9 and 9:30am in the mornings on weekdays, they have since the late spring. Hopefully, they will put something else at 9am.
 
Nice move. Wheel and Jeopardy always seemed out of place to me on TV38. I like the idea of them being on WBZ. I think this will be the first time Wheel has been on WBZ since it was on daytime back in the early 90's.
 
Wow!! This is cool! And I agree with Skynet74 about them being out of place. They really do belong on one of the major networks!
 
WLNY on Long Island is an independent that still airs Wheel and Jeopardy - as well as Oprah, and Dr. Phil, and Ellen, and Rachael Ray...
 
I know WLNY airs them, but it's not their primary home. They're both shown on WABC there.

Anyway, can we get some confirmation/proof that they're moving to WBZ? I haven't heard anything.
 
I wonder if the CBC coerced WBZ to move the shows from WSBK to WBZ? This fall, the CBC began carrying Wheel and Jeopardy at 7PM and 7:30PM local time (respectively), meaning simsub opportunities in Ontario and Quebec. Considering that WBZ is a basic US channel on Bell TV (and some cable systems) and WSBK is a premium channel, I wonder if the CBC taught WBZ into making the switch, so that the shows would be more available (and legal grounds for simsubbing)?
 
My guess is that CBS, which owns WBZ and WSBK, cares little about how they are carried in Canada. Or for that matter, CBS probably doesn't care much about WSBK getting carried on U.S. cable systems outside Boston. (Does WSBK still carry some Bruins or Celtics games? They used to be on nearly all New England cable systems when they carried the Red Sox as well.)

It's simple. Most stations that run Jeopardy & Wheel are number one in that time period. Since WBZ is the more important station and a good lead-in helps CBS's Prime Time line up, it makes sense for CBS to make sure an important market like Boston has its best syndicated programming in the 7-8pm hour.

I believe the original reason that WSBK got Wheel & Jeopardy was because WBZ had been running a 7-7:30 local newscast... or delayed the CBS Evening News to 7pm. So rather than splitting Wheel & Jeopardy apart, they ran the shows on their independent station (or UPN affiliate for a while).

Now that WBZ ends news (local and national) at 7pm, both shows can run in tandem on WBZ.

(One more note... my family owns a summer cottage on the New Hampshire-Maine border, 100 miles north of Boston. WBZ along with NBC affiliate WHDH, comes in the best of all the Boston TV stations, watchable many nights when conditions are right. Only on rare occasions does WSBK come in.)




Gregg
[email protected]
 
I posted about this on the Sony Pictures message board (the company that owns both Wheel and J!), and they don't seem too happy about this. I agree that WBZ is a better fit for these shows, but remember Patriots All Access on Friday nights. One of the board members emailed the station, and apparently WBZ does not plan to air the Friday episodes AT ALL, with the exception of the Wheel episodes that were taped in Boston, which will air on Saturday night at 7:30, replacing the weekend episode of Jeopardy! Why they can't just air them at another time is beyond me, especially with all of the useless infomercials they air during the wee hours.

And for those of you who do remember, both these shows were on WHDH channel 7 for many years before WSBK got the rights to them. I remember if there was a local special, or a national event starting at 7:30, they would pre-empt Wheel altogether, and simply air J! at 7:00. I have no idea what the reason for this was, and they did it both as a CBS and an NBC affiliate.
 
ssetta said:
I posted about this on the Sony Pictures message board (the company that owns both Wheel and J!), and they don't seem too happy about this. I agree that WBZ is a better fit for these shows, but remember Patriots All Access on Friday nights. One of the board members emailed the station, and apparently WBZ does not plan to air the Friday episodes AT ALL, with the exception of the Wheel episodes that were taped in Boston, which will air on Saturday night at 7:30
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That would be really dumb for a major market station to cut out a day of Wheel of Fortune airings. Especially for a Football show! That's not even a good reason. This Patriots all access show should be saved for the weekend. Thankfuly I can still get Wheel from another market station. Unfortunately not everybody else can.
 
It was quite effective apparently:

(http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/beantown-tale-wheel-jeopardy-flex-their-muscles-boston-9249)

"Wheel" and "Jeopardy!" saw their total viewer ratings jump 58 percent on WBZ over their year-ago average rating on WSBK. (The game shows also grew in adults 18-49, though by a smaller 9 percent figure).

Even more stunning, however, was the boost to WBZ's time period averages.

During their first week on WBZ, the gameshows improved the station's average by an amazing 173 percent in total viewers and by 71 percent in adults 18-49 vs. what "ET"/"Insider" had averaged. Oh, and WBZ, which previously ranked fifth in the hour leading into primetime? It's now in first place among total viewers.
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Good for WBZ. It baffled me how such marquee pre-primetime shows were not being aired on a najor network affiliate in a Top 10 market. Though, give WSBK credit for offering something "different".
 
I wonder if WBZ will be moving that silly Friday night Patriots show to another time slot, now that they see how good the ratings of Wheel OF Fortune are.
 
There was a petition at Sony Pictures about airing the Friday episodes on a different night, and it worked. They are now airing the Friday episodes in place of the weekend rerun episodes on Saturday.
 
ssetta said:
There was a petition at Sony Pictures about airing the Friday episodes on a different night, and it worked. They are now airing the Friday episodes in place of the weekend rerun episodes on Saturday.
Click to expand...

Well at least that makes some sense. Better than nothing. But wouldn't it be better to air The Patriots show on Saturday Nights instead?
 
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